


whence, whither, why

by bottledbliss



Category: The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Pointless Angst, Pointless fluff, Soulmate AU, kastle - Freeform, the briefest smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-07
Updated: 2019-12-11
Packaged: 2020-11-01 23:40:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 23,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20547305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bottledbliss/pseuds/bottledbliss
Summary: Karen and Frank didn't care much for soulmates, each for their own reasons. Until they met.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [heidiamalia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/heidiamalia/gifts).

“Can you stop doodling and come help me with these… things?”

The things Foggy is referring to are a bunch of shiny, red balloons, currently floating up towards the ceiling as he tries to hold a cardboard box with one hand, while signing for the delivery with the other. The courier is finding it very hard not to snicker and frankly, so is Karen. It would be nice to just leave the balloons there, billowing around the room with each of their movements, but Foggy’s sincere desperation makes her put down her pen and chase after them.

“She is so persistent!” Foggy huffs after slamming the door shut.

“An admirable quality, when you think about it,” she says, swallowing down a laugh.

“Is it?”

“Yes, it is.” She hasn’t had the chance to meet Marci yet, but Karen can tell she’s a woman who knows what she wants and isn’t afraid to fight for it, even if her tactics frustrate Foggy to no end.

“Spoken like a person whose soulmate isn’t the devil.”

“Marci isn’t the devil,” she glares at him. It can’t be too intimidating a glare, seeing as she’s holding the strings of _his_ balloons in one hand, the other curled into a fist on her thigh, like a child demanding more.

“You’re cute,” he grins, looking up from the box which he seems too nervous to open. “You should keep those.”

“I don’t want them,” she says, but goes around her desk and ties them to the back of her chair anyway, perfectly aware that she’ll be taking them home with her at the end of the day. She never could resist the unwanted.

“We don’t always get what we want, Karen.” His grin reaches further up but doesn’t touch his eyes.

Karen hates how childish the question sounds in her head, but she tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, clears her throat and says “How did you know? That she was your soulmate?”

Foggy’s shoulders sag. It couldn’t be clearer that he doesn’t want to talk about it. He’s been avoiding the topic just as much as he’s been avoiding Marci herself. His less than charming declaration of how he’d rather hang himself than end up with her hasn’t been enough to discourage her though. “I didn’t.”

“How is that possible? Everybody just… knows.”

“What do you want me to tell you? That I bear her signature on my butt or something?” It wouldn’t be so strange; she’s heard of cases where that was exactly what happened. Others are less ridiculous however. Someone’s favourite lyrics or a meaningful quote scribbled across their other half’s skin, a burst of light on their meeting, a certain warm sensation that grew and grew the closer they got to each other. Very poetic, very romantic stuff. “I’ve known Marci for a while and she’d never said anything about it to me. Then, one fine day, she accosts me and says I’m her soulmate. And I just ran.”

Karen tips her head to the side, her eyes widening momentarily with surprise. “You ran?”

“That’s right, I ran and I would do it again if I had to.” He shakes the box in his hands, trying to decipher its contents. Nothing rattles. He frowns. “I can’t be bound to a woman who has a register in the place a soul should be.”

“I doubt a person like that would be your soulmate.” Despite sounding a tad too harsh just now, he really is all softness. Marci can’t be such a far cry from that.

“And yet…” he chuckles.

“But how did you know she was telling the truth?” What she wants is to be told about the revelation, the moment when it all clicked, because how will she know, devoid of any symbols as her skin is, not even a first name stamped anywhere on her?

“I trust her,” Foggy says and that is more telling than anything he’s said before.

And maybe that’s all it took for him. If you can’t trust your own soulmate, who can you trust?

Karen goes back to her desk, hand on the pen as soon as she’s in her chair, doodling, just like she was doing when Foggy interrupted her, only slightly more furiously. How will she know when the One comes along, so she can be sure she’s telling the right person to get lost? She doesn’t want a soulmate, she’s never needed one. Foggy lacking a mark and still finding his isn’t very promising, but if she’s lucky, there’s nobody out there looking for her right now.

“God, I hate that thing. Why couldn’t you be drawing flowers or hearts or kittens? Something cute?” he comments before making his way back to his office. “Instead, we have this morbid crap glaring at us from every piece of paper you’ve ever touched.”

“You’re too old to be afraid of skulls, Foggy,” she laughs at him.

“Hey, I’m old enough to be afraid of anything I want,” he says and with a last, doleful look at Marci’s present, he closes the door.

Whatever it is that he finds when he finally opens the box, making him blurt a very loud “Oh, Jesus!” that Karen is pretty sure can be heard three floors down, has her thinking Marci might just be on the right track.

“What’s all that about?” The noise has forced Matt to make his first appearance of the day, timidly walking out of his office, back hunched, his body curling in on itself like he was just shot in the heart. That’s how he looks these days, always that unbearable weight on his shoulders. She’ll never forget the five months they struggled with simply getting him out of bed. It was a long and strenuous process, but he comes into work now, he eats without having to be told. He tries. He’ll be walking with his back straight again at some point, even if she has to toil over him for five years. She’s done it before, she knows the drill.

Another great reason not to want a soulmate. Their death leaves you in pieces. All the healing in the world can never make you whole again.

“A Marci thing.” She infuses her answer with a laugh, hoping it will sting less that way. “He’s still fighting it.”

“Not for long.” His lip lifts up in a half-grin.

Anything that doesn’t make him break down in tears is a victory and Karen counts it as one. But one isn’t enough. “Want to have lunch out today? Somewhere quiet?”

“Uh, no,” Matt mumbles. “We have that 12:30 deposition and you need to be back in time for your three o’clock,” he continues. “The only outdoors lunch we have time for is a hot dog on the way, if you feel like it.”

“Okay, but you’re buying.”

“Of course,” he says and because he follows that with another grin, Karen allows him to go back into hiding in his office.

Following Foggy’s suggestion, she tries her hand at drawing a flower. Turns out her hand is bad at flowers, so she ends up scribbling over her botched attempt at cuteness, stabbing it with the tip of her pen as though to prove a point.

There’s nothing about Frank’s situation that isn’t awkward. The divorce itself, how nervous he is about it, the fact that there seem to be roughly five remaining divorce lawyers in the whole country and three of them are in Texas. It’s not that Karen Page, Esquire, didn’t come highly recommended, but if he could have had his pick, he probably wouldn’t have gone for any lawyer described as ‘vicious’. The whole thing is difficult enough without imagining a hardass attorney handling his case.

At least the man greeting him delivers a friendly smile, a firm handshake and a coffee offer to boot, calming his nerves somewhat.

“The conference room is free, so why don’t we take a seat there until my associate arrives?” he gestures towards an open door. Frank nods and follows him inside. “For the record, she isn’t usually late for appointments. It’s just that depositions can drag on sometimes.” 

“Can’t you do the consultation?” Frank grumbles over his mug, the coffee’s tang tickling his nose. Not skimping on the coffee shouldn’t be instrumental in making him trust this firm, but he does take it into account.

“Is there a reason why you’d need a criminal lawyer for a simple divorce?”

“No, I…” _Just wanna be done with it_.

“I understand the urgency of your circumstances, but you have nothing to worry about. Ms. Page is excellent at her job,” Nelson says with another one of those soothing smiles. “And there’s no one better to have on your side, especially for a rare case such as yours.”

He manages a chuckle. “Divorces are obsolete now, aren’t they?”

“Not exactly. There's always Vegas,” the other man replies with a chuckle of his own. "But they might be soon."

“So what will a divorce lawyer do then? The few left, won’t they be out of a job?”

“Ah, that’s a very good question,” he crosses his hands on the table and gives a small nod as though he has some pondering to do, but his tone says he’s answered the same question countless times. “Family lawyers have other things to keep them busy. You see, while soulmates make for perfect matches, there’s no guarantee those matches will produce perfect parents. You’d be surprised with how many neglect cases come in.”

Frank’s jaw clicks as he grinds his teeth together. Nelson has only mentioned neglect— abuse goes without saying. How can any two people claim their match was made in heaven, if they can’t even care for their goddamn kids? “Your partner,” he says, messing with his sleeves to keep his hands busy, “that’s what she does most of the time? Defend the kids? Make sure they’re okay?”

Nelson beams like he couldn’t be prouder and immediately simmers down to maintain his professional demeanor. “Most of the time.”

Then that is one hardass he wouldn’t mind handling his case, Frank thinks before a blonde whirlwind bursts through the front door. He turns to Nelson, who still has a smile fixed on his face, and raises an eyebrow.

“Foggy, I’m so sorry!” her voice comes from the other side of the office, moving closer. “You’ll have to go pick up Matt when he’s done, which I don’t know when will happen. Everybody got agitated, so we had to take a break and—“

“Miss Page!” her associate interrupts with a slightly raised voice. “Your client is waiting in the conference room.” 

Just as he’s thinking that the vibe he’s been getting so far is putting him at ease, Karen Page steps into the conference room. “Mister Castle, I apologize for making you wait.”

Frank’s brain instantly malfunctions in all kinds of ways.

For one, she’s beautiful enough to make him sweat, with a smile so bright it puts the sun to shame, that has him gulping down his own breath even before his eyes stray towards her long, long legs. She also looks familiar, too familiar, and he hopes to God she’s not one of the women he’s slept with while trying to get over Maria, because then he’s going to have to find a different lawyer and he can’t stand the thought of doing that. Temperature rising, he jumps out of his chair and pushes up his sleeves, reaching out to shake her hand. “Ma’am.” 

Her nose scrunches up at his words, but she approaches, almost delighted at the handshake and as she pulls back, her hand lands on Nelson’s shoulder, squeezing. His head snaps to her so fast, it wouldn’t be surprising if his neck broke.

“Did you—” he stammers.

“Will you excuse us for a little while longer?” she says. “I need a word with my partner.” And the two leave the room, closing the door behind them, giving Frank time to recover his breath.

It takes him a goddamn while.

“You can’t take his case!” The veins in Foggy’s neck pop out as he whispers “Do the words ‘conflict of interest’ mean anything to you?”

“There’s no conflict of interest because I’m not interested in him!”

If she had ever suspected that her soulmate would turn up at her office looking to hire her for his divorce, she would have gone into journalism or something. Of all the stories she’s heard, this really takes the cake. So what if her first thought on seeing him was that his bottom lip was made for biting? She’s had attractive clients before and she didn’t end up in bed with any of them. Frank Castle is no different. He isn’t special, even if the black skull on his wrist says otherwise, even if her heart can’t seem to find a rhythm.

“You don’t mess around with this stuff, okay? This guy is your soulmate.” He exhales into his palm. “You have to send him to someone else.”

“Who, Newman? There’s a reason nobody ever sends anyone to Newman.”

“It doesn’t have to be Newman, there’s—”

“He came to me! I’m right here and Castle is in there and I’m taking his case.” She crosses her arms on her chest, shakes her head. “If you don’t trust me to do my job…”

“Oh, come on! You know I trust you, Karen, that’s not the issue here.”

“There is no issue here,” Karen says, clipping each word.

“So, what? You’re going to sit down with him and never once mention what you’ve been drawing since you were fourteen? And what if…” He moves his hands clumsily over his chest, his fingers tense. “He’s already felt it?”

“Foggy…” She pinches the bridge of her nose. “The guy is getting a divorce. He’s feeling anxious, sad, angry. A whole rollercoaster of emotions that has no seat for me.”

“You have to tell him,” he insists.

“I’ll tell him when you take Marci out to dinner.” She throws her most smug grin his way, chin pointing out, and immediately turns her back to him. “I have a client waiting.”

When she returns to the conference room, she finds Castle leaning back in his chair, one hand around his mug, the other gripping the side of the table. He raises his eyes to her slowly, forehead creasing with worry.

“No more delays,” she assures him and takes a seat opposite him, avoiding a glimpse at the mark on his wrist. “I’m all yours.” Not exactly the best choice of words, but he doesn’t seem to notice.

“Look, I don’t know how this thing is supposed to work.” He lets go of the table and starts rubbing the back of his neck. “But you’ll guide me through it, right? Everybody says you’re great at what you do and I…” Castle sighs. “I just want a quick and painless divorce. Can you do that?”

“I can do quick,” she says, her eyes soft on his face. Here’s where her can-do attitude falls short though. “I don’t know about painless.”

“Too much to ask, I guess.” He sighs again and nods.

Karen picks up a legal pad and a pen, pressing its tip to the corner of the paper. _Mustn’t doodle, mustn’t doodle_. “Let’s get through some questions first. Some of them will be easy. Like, what’s your state of residence?”

“New York, ma’am,” he says and she has to fight the urge to laugh while she’s taking notes, or she won’t be able to read her own handwriting. It must be a mistake, her soulmate couldn’t be so old-fashioned.

“Your spouse’s too?”

He groans an affirmative.

“Easy, right? Harmless.” The next one won’t be. She smooths the way with a brief smile. “And what are the grounds for divorce?”

It takes him a moment to reply, a short moment, during which anger flares in his eyes, disappearing as quickly as it appeared. “She found her soulmate.”

“Courts tend to rule in favor of soulmates in cases of adultery, but we could try, if that’s what you want.”

“No.” Frank puts his elbows on the table, his head in his hands. “Maria, she—She didn’t cheat on me and even if she had… I’ve done my fair share of stupid things, I couldn’t judge her.” He looks down. “I don’t want revenge, don’t want her to hate me. She says she doesn’t, but she will, if I choose to fight her on this. It was my fault, you know?”

She hasn’t met a client that hasn’t tried to lie to her so far. Even the most innocent ones have one thing or another they want to hide, to make themselves look better, more defendable. But he won’t lie, he won’t make her push and prod. He’s just going to pour his heart out.

“I was young, stupid and in love, and I thought nothing mattered except what I felt. Thought it mattered more, because she had another man’s name on her arm and still loved me back. When I asked her to marry me, she hesitated. I should’ve taken that as a sign, but I was too stubborn, too selfish. Didn’t consider what I’d be keeping her from.” Then he looks up at Karen, his heartache reflected in those dark eyes of his. “The sooner we can move on from this, the better.”

“Mister Castle…” She could be feeling for him simply because she recognizes the very human need for comfort emanating from him. Or it might be because they’re destined to be together and that somehow makes them less human, more puppet-like. “Why didn’t you wait for your soulmate, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Didn’t care,” he replies with a slightly disgusted laugh. “It’s not for me. I’ve seen how happy these people can be together, I have. I don’t doubt it. But I didn’t wanna be forced on someone, you know? I wanted to be…” he lets the sentence trail off.

“Chosen,” she finishes it for him.

Now his eyes light up a little, the corner of his mouth twitching with a pensive grin. “Exactly right.”

That’s when it all clicks for Karen, an electric shock crackling through her body, a compass needle spinning before finally standing still— he is true north in a murky horizon, he is where her heart will find its rest. And intently as he’s staring at her, he isn’t sharing in her epiphany. “It’s a shame though.” She chuckles to break the tension. “I’m sure there’s an interesting story behind that mark,” she says, pointing her pen in the direction of his wrist.

He scoffs like the mere mention of soul marks offends him. “It’s just a tattoo. Got it after I graduated SOI.”

He has no idea how wrong he is. He may have chosen the design and the placement, but that thing is practically screaming her name. And Karen doesn’t have the heart to tell him. “So you’re opting for an uncontested divorce,” she says instead. “More quiet, less costly. Much better in general.”

“Yeah, tell that to my kids.” He slouches further down. “The separation’s been tough on them. The divorce is gonna be worse, no matter how we handle it,” he adds and straightens up.

Karen instantly recovers from any sentimentality he might have caused her. “You have children?”

“Two. Pride and joy and all that,” he says, giving her an honest smile that wipes all the previous sadness from his face.

“Okay, Frank.” She can worry about the huge mistake of addressing him without formality later. He’s only a client, he expects her to do her job and she’s sure as hell going to do it without distractions. He isn’t special. “We’re going to make it as painless as possible.”

The warm relief in his voice when he says “Thank you, ma’am” doesn’t leave any room for laughter. He doesn’t call her by her name.

If she’s lucky, he never will.

Maria’s lawyer is, of course, Joseph Newman, carrying his briefcase like a weapon as he walks into Karen’s office while she’s discussing details with Castle. She’s surprised he managed to sneak past Foggy, honestly, but a snake like him would.

“Karen Page,” he smirks. “How are things? Are you still a bitch?”

She feels Frank’s clamped fist brush her thigh, shaking in anger. It would be adorable, if she didn’t believe that he would actually punch Newman into a wall. Then again, some blood might improve the décor. Karen touches her palm to his knuckles, gives him a warning look—_let me handle this_, and he inhales deeply through his nose.

“That depends, Joe,” she returns his sneer. “Have you figured out how to file with the Court on time?” Then she nods him out the door, “There’s coffee in the conference room. Help yourself,” and closes it behind him.

Frank’s temper doesn’t improve, a vein throbbing in his forehead. “He always talks to you like this?”

“Mister Castle.” Her hand folds around his arm. “Let’s not make a big deal over someone so small.”

Flexing his fingers out, he inclines his head in agreement, but his eyes are still burning. “Asshole,” he mutters under his breath and Karen releases her hold on him, pretending that she hasn’t heard.

There’s only so much dignity people can bring into a divorce, even an uncontested one, which makes the Castle divorce all the more strange. Karen was prepared for the possibility of them jumping at each other’s throats at the slightest provocation, ready to defuse the situation if need be, but the need never arises. They don’t clash, don’t disagree on the terms and when it comes to the children, they astonish her by how good a team they make.

She almost feels sorry that they are splitting up.

Frank remains composed, his face all angles and hard lines. He likes being in control but he surrenders it to Karen in this instance, the knots in his shoulders unraveling at her encouraging smile. At some point he even laughs. It takes a whole lot of restraint not to charge him and drink that laughter straight from his lips.

They all make it out of the conference unscathed. Even Newman.

With all the paperwork to draft and documents to file, fighting gravity at the same time proves to be nearly impossible. Every time Frank calls with a question, offering a thousand apologies for bothering her and an equal amount of thanks for her help, Karen feels herself falling. And the fall is long and scary, but she catches herself at the last minute, just before the crash. The five months she’s been doing this are wearing her out, but she only needs to hold out a little bit longer. After she hands over the divorce decree, she’ll never have to see him again.

“I have a family law question.” Foggy strolls into her office, running his finger across a page of a leather-bound book. 

“I could use a break.” She frowns when she realizes that a swarm of skulls is staring up at her from her notes. It’s been happening more often lately. It needs to stop. “Go ahead.”

“How long after your soulmate’s divorce is final do you have to wait to tell them they’re your soulmate?" He looks at her, half triumph and half condescension. “I didn’t find a single reference in my literature search.”

“Why are you like this?” Karen sighs and plants her face into her palm.

“Reasonable? Smart?” He shrugs. “It’s a gift.” He closes the book, holding it in front of him like a shield. “I’m taking Marci out tonight.”

She looks up at him, absolutely stunned. He’s not doing this just so he can hold her to that passing comment she made months ago, is he? That would be childish.

“I realized how stupid I must have looked by observing you,” Foggy tells her, cheeks flushing. “It’s hard work, staying away, while every bone in your body aches to be closer to that one person. I couldn’t stand it anymore.”

“Good for you, but I’m not afraid of hard work,” she motions to the stacks of files around her. “As you can see. I like a challenge.”

“Is that what you’re getting out of it? A sense of pride? You think it makes you better than the rest of us?”

Matt taps his cane against the doorframe to catch their attention. “If I may point out that personal misconduct can get you disbarred…”

“Please,” Foggy raises his voice. “We’re past that, okay? Here.” He reaches over and grabs Castle’s divorce papers from the top of one of the piles on Karen’s desk, slamming it into Matt’s palm. “She’s handled it like the pro that she is, they couldn’t prove misconduct if they tried. And the divorce is final, it’s done.”

“Maybe she needs her time, Foggy,” he says. “You took yours.”

“I took my time because Marci is… seemed like the devil’s sidekick.”

“We’re all intimidated by something. You were afraid of Marci—”

“I wasn’t afraid of Marci!”

“—Karen’s afraid of—”

“Stop talking like I’m not here!” Karen reminds them, getting up and taking the file back from Matt. “I’m going to say this once and we won’t mention it again, got it? I have no intention of going after Frank Castle. It would be unethical and weird and I don’t even like him that much.” She feels her lungs contract as the words leave her mouth. “As for misconduct, what you’re doing right now constitutes as such, so get the hell out of my office and let me get on with my work.”

Foggy opens his mouth to say something, but the way she glares at him is enough to make him reconsider. Matt, probably as a joke that she doesn’t appreciate in the least, says “Yes, ma’am” and is out the door before she can tell him off, Foggy at his heel, shaking his head.

Of course Matt would be the one to see right through her, just for the irony of it. In any other case, she’d be able to say her mother didn’t raise a coward. Not in Castle’s case though. Castle has her scared to death.

It’s early evening when Frank makes it to the offices of Nelson, Murdock and Page. The former two seem to be absent. Ms. Page is in her office, staring out the window at the city lights, tapping a pen against her desk like she hates both objects, but the pen a little more. Her hair is in a tight bun at the back of her head, as usual. A braver man might ask her to let it down. She jumps when he raps a knuckle on her door, breaking her trance.

“Mister Castle, I didn’t hear you come in.”

He still hasn’t figured out what it is about the way she says his last name that has his pulse speeding. Must be the decorum of it all. He is a traditional man after all, he has an appreciation for etiquette. That doesn’t explain why he’s blacked out once or twice, daydreaming about throwing her on the conference table and biting her neck, but it’s easy enough to dismiss. Between balancing work with visitation, he has no time to worry about his personal life too. It would be inappropriate anyway. Wouldn’t it?

“Miss Page.” He bows his head in greeting. “I’m here for-”

“The decree, yes,” she says and immediately stands up with a file in her hands.

She really can’t wait to get him out of there. Probably has better things to do than waste her time on a very very recently divorced father of two. He clears his throat and takes the file from her. “Thank you.”

“Was it painless?” she asks, a twinkle of tenderness in her eyes.

Would it sound callous if he said yes? Truth is his pain numbed pretty quickly, one of the benefits of getting over a person who isn’t your soulmate maybe. But she’s made it better too. All those clauses she added to make sure Maria’s man can never mistreat his babies unless he wants to be buried under lawsuits –as opposed to being buried in the ground as Frank would like it, the way she would pat his hand whenever he’d get anxious, the way she laughed at his dumb jokes. Such a vicious creature. “Yes, ma’am,” he says and continues with a small laugh. “The kids seem to be doing okay too, well as can be expected.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” she nods. “Our business is concluded then. You know how to contact me if anything comes up.”

He takes a look at the paper within the file. Signed by the county clerk. Official. With the bills taken care of, he really has nothing else to do here. He just has to thank her again, say goodbye and leave. He should leave. “Karen, I…”

Her chest rises sharply as she blinks at him, a scarlet hue spreading across her cheeks. He’s crossed a line there. What line, he doesn’t know, but between her silence, her golden eyelashes fluttering down to avoid his gaze and him shoving his free hand into his pocket to stop it from seeking a touch he doesn’t deserve, he hates whoever drew it. 

Everybody’s waiting for someone these days. She’s waiting for someone too, but, Christ, how he wishes that things were different, that she’d take him for a spin until that person came along. “Thanks for everything.” He holds up the divorce papers. “I’ll, uh…” He doesn’t want to say ‘see you around’, so he just nods and makes for the exit.

“Mister Castle!” Her fingertips barely brush down his arm before she pulls back. “Take care,” she says, the same tenderness in her eyes escorting him out of the office, his insides trembling.

With the divorce papers burning hot in his hand, he should be thinking about how he’ll be moving forward with his life, he should be thinking about his children and his job and other important things. He shouldn’t be thinking about how long he can kiss that woman before his lungs collapse. He has no idea how he managed to hold back. If he ever sees her again, he doesn’t know that he’ll be able to. Good thing he doesn’t have to see her again then. Unless he plans on getting any more divorces.

“I was kidding,” he has to explain to Curtis later, as the attempt at humor is currently flying over his head. “My wallet couldn’t take another divorce.”

“She can’t be that hot,” he says without laughing.

“It’s not about that, it’s…” Frank stares at the ceiling. “She is that hot, but...”

Curtis laughs then, out loud, like he’s in on a complicated joke that nobody has bothered to explain to Frank. “You can take every woman in New York out on a date, but you can’t run from the inevitable. Somebody’s looking for you as we speak. How much longer do you think you can hide?”

It sounds like a threat. And Frank doesn’t buy into threats.

As chance would have it, he’s with Curtis the next time he sees her.

They’re scoping out a location for their newest client, Daniel Rand, a billionaire humanitarian. His mere existence is an oxymoron, but it looks like he’s the real deal. A bit too naïve and amicable for Frank’s liking, he’s asked them to call him Danny, but even the cherries in training know not to do that. At least he’s being smart, doubling up on security- after the second attempt on his life.

They’re finishing checking out all entrances and exits of the venue when a flash of gold catches the corner of his eye. It could be nothing, probably someone’s piece of jewelry touched by the sun, but his stomach tenses. First time he’s seeing her outside the office- she doesn’t look any less professional, her hair wrapped up into a high bun on her head, white shirt, a pencil skirt that shows off her legs and while he’s on the job, his gaze lingers on her a bit too long.

“Doesn’t look dangerous to me,” Curtis tells him as she passes a few feet by them, oblivious to their presence.

And Frank thinks _you’re wrong. She’s more dangerous than you could ever imagine, she’ll get under your skin and rip your guts out, that’s a vicious lady walking by and you’d better look away or she’ll turn you to stone with one glance_. “That’s Karen Page,” he says.

Curt’s eyebrows rise and Frank hides a knowing snicker in his lapel. “Okay, she is that hot.”

But it’s not about that at all.

The second time he sees her, he doesn’t.

They’ve dropped off Daniel Rand at his place and, deciding to end the night with cheap booze somewhere quiet, David has suggested they go to the shittiest of shitholes Frank has ever seen. Something tells him he could pick up four types of flu and a plague just by leaning against the bar’s counter, but there’s a warmth to this place that endures despite the owner’s best efforts to glare them out of her establishment. The flat line of her mouth only makes the atmosphere more charming. A few lone drinkers, couple of groups of friends, nobody bothering anybody. Music’s not bad. He could see himself becoming a regular.

“Show me again, show me,” a voice says behind his back, muffled by the music, as two blondes stumble their way to the door and dissolve in peals of drunken mirth.

“Isn’t that your lawyer?” Curt nudges him.

Frank only catches a glimpse of the familiar curve of her smile in the mirror behind the bar before David jumps out of his stool to clamber up his shoulders. “Let me see! I want to see!” By the time he’s managed to get him off his back, the rippling hem of her coat is turning the corner and she disappears like a mirage.

“Oh man,” David whistles. “Totally out of your league.”

“Nobody asked you, spook,” he snarls.

He still thinks about Karen Page a month later, sometimes even dreams about her— her hair hanging over his face, lips parting, a kiss, just one, and then he wakes to no kiss at all and the world feels like a grey and rueful place.

It’s during one of his outings with Lisa and Frankie, a headache working to split his head in half, the kids arguing about something or other and him trying really hard not to shush them, that he sees her for the third time, talking on the phone, eyebrows knit together as she walks towards them. She’s obviously irritated and perpetually gorgeous. Through the steady thrum of his migraine, he reaches out to grab Lisa before she bumps into her, shoulder-first, but he’s too slow. Karen’s phone slips out of her hand, its screen cracking against the sidewalk. She bends down to get it and Lisa mumbles an embarrassed apology.

“It’s okay, sweetie,” she says. “Phones break all the time. You did me a favor actually.” The kindness in her voice makes him forget he was in pain a moment ago. “I was talking to a very rude man.”

“Dad…” Lisa turns to him for rescue.

He rubs her cheek. “You didn’t do it on purpose, sweetheart. Ms. Page already said it’s okay.” Karen’s head snaps up when she hears his voice, blue eyes wide. “I’m gonna pay for that.”

She stands upright and shakes her head. “No, please, there’s no need. It was cheap enough for me not to care.” Her lips curl up, making her cheeks puff up a little and Frank wonders if anyone in the world has ever missed their lawyer as much as he has missed his.

“Hi, Frank,” she says, his name a sigh out of her lips. “That’s two beautiful children you’ve got there.”

“Yeah, stole them this morning.” The sudden lack of headache puts him in a decidedly good mood. He ruffles his son’s hair, pulls his daughter close. “Their parents must be furious.”

Even though Karen doesn’t suppress a giggle, Lisa rushes to her dad’s defense, clutching his arm as though someone could tear her away from him at any moment. “He didn’t steal us, he’s lying!”

“Oh, no, I know that,” Karen puts her mind to rest. “Don’t worry, nobody’s charging your dad with kidnapping.” She grins at him, mischief in her sparkling eyes. “He should be charged with something, but definitely not kidnapping.”

If he squints, it could look like teasing, bordering on flirting.

Introductions are made, a mature handshake from Lisa, a who-cares-not-me wave from Frankie, and maybe it’s all in Frank’s head, but Karen doesn’t seem to be in such a hurry to go, so he does the stupidest thing he can think of and asks her to join them. “These two need to eat something and I could use a cup of coffee. Just coffee, not a meal.”

“Because meals are for dates,” Frankie breaks it down for her as if it was absolutely necessary and she responds with a stunned lift of her eyebrows.

Frank rolls his eyes. “Did that sound better in your head?” Nodding, his son makes a frowny face. “Do you think it maybe should’ve stayed there?”

“Sorry,” he grumbles.

When he turns to look at Karen, her pale complexion is changing into a more flushed one, the corner of her lip caught with her teeth in an effort not to laugh. If the children weren’t there, he’d be using his own teeth to help her. “You won’t let me pay for your phone, at least let me buy you a cup of coffee,” he pleads, hoping that whoever she’s waiting for hasn’t turned up yet, that she’s tired of waiting, that maybe, just maybe, she’s missed him too.

Karen says “Okay”.

He feels like his chest could explode. “Okay?”

“Yeah,” she nods, shoulders rising and falling with a relaxed breath. “Coffee sounds great.”

With her phone broken, Karen can pretend she’s unreachable, in a bubble of her own, where she gets to sit down and watch Frank Castle be a dad. It’s a side of him that she couldn’t have predicted would bring about this longing, ebbing and flowing within her with every breath. The more his children smile up at him, the more she wants to reach over and squeeze his hand, absorb some of that essence that puts those smiles there.

From the other end of the table, Frank catches her eye. He had to be wearing a blue sweater, make the darkness in his eyes pop more, didn’t he? They peer at each other for a moment, like they could will the rest of the world to fade out, give them some space.

“Bored?” he grins politely, his voice a lot deeper than the question demands.

“No, this is nice,” she grins back. “But I feel bad taking up time you’re supposed to be spending with your children.”

“We don’t mind,” says Lisa, looking up from her fries. “Do you mind, Frankie?” she asks her brother who shakes his head, a mouthful of burger impeding his speech. “He’s taking us back in an hour or so anyway.”

Pouting, Karen leans forward. “Will that be enough time to get to know you guys?”

They probably don’t get so much attention from most adults, as Lisa’s suspicion confirms. “You don’t have to pretend you’re interested in us.”

She doesn’t flinch. These are his children, a reflection of him, his pride and joy and all that. Of course she’s interested in them. “I mean it. I want to know everything. Do you love school? Do you hate it? What’s your favorite book? What’s your favorite thing in the whole world?”

“Dinosaurs!” Lisa exclaims, buzzing with excitement as she looks between her and her dad, and Frankie chews faster so he can give his answer of ‘video games’ before the time runs out. “Did you know the T-Rex had teeth as big as bananas?”

“That is… Is that something a twelve-year-old should be so enthusiastic about?” she asks Frank.

“It’s her thing,” he shrugs.

The swell of warmth in Karen’s chest fans out to her limbs as the two kids bombard her with opinions and questions of their own. She listens to them carefully and replies as honestly as she can –it would be better if she didn’t let slip how she knows their father- and she pretends that she doesn’t notice Frank’s doting gaze on her, or the way his fingers dance on the table before he hides his hand under it.

Whenever he opens his mouth to get a word in, the children cut him off and he lets them, throwing silent apologies Karen’s way through the furrow of his brow. She smiles her equally wordless affirmation—_it’s okay, I’m enjoying this, it’s okay_.

“It was good coffee, right?” he tells her when they’re outside and about to part ways.

“Yes, thank you, I had a great time. And it was really nice meeting you,” she says to the kids, both of them extending their hands for a handshake now and she gives one hand to each. 

Since she doesn’t have a third one to offer Frank, she just chuckles in his direction and, thank God or damn it all to hell and back again, he leans in for a harmless kiss on the cheek. His lips brush the corner of her mouth, fresh stubble tickling her skin, her lungs shrinking and expanding at a frightening speed. Frank leaves a sigh on her cheek as he retreats, patting his children on the back- a sign they all must let her go. Then he blinks a slow goodbye to her.

Whoever is pulling the strings can’t be forcing her to shift her weight from one foot to the other, idling instead of taking off, opening her mouth despite knowing keeping it shut is an option. The fall is so, so long and she might end up in a million pieces when she crashes, but in the time since she’s seen him, she’s learned that it’s scarier to keep letting him walk away. “See you later?”

“You want to?” he shoots back, his spine tight.

“Whenever you’re free.” Under Lisa’s watchful eye, there isn’t much more she can say.

His voice is soft and shaky when he calls her at home a couple of hours later -"Tried the office first, didn’t know if you would’ve replaced your phone”- to tell her he’s free now and all day tomorrow, letting the promise of an uninterrupted night hang between them while she makes up her mind about whether she’ll let him take her out to dinner- because meals are for dates.

Karen thinks about saying no, just to prove that she can and ends up saying yes, God, yes, and her heart flutters alongside the butterflies that are no longer in her stomach, but gliding up her throat in a giggle. This feeling couldn’t be imposed by some cosmic matching algorithm. It must be entirely hers.

She put up a good fight. She ignored the skull sketches congregating in her notes, a smitten Foggy’s assertions that happiness is within arm’s reach, Matt’s sighs of understanding and agreement. And the dreams, the goddamn dreams, him calling out to her through a darkened mist and her saying no every time. There’s no shame in forfeiting now.

Her mother would be proud.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've read anything of mine before, you'll remember I don't know what I'm doing. I just wanted to give [heidiamalia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/heidiamalia/pseuds/heidiamalia) a nice little soulmate au and now everything's gotten out of hand and it's all a mess and I'm freaking out! I hope you like it, okay?


	2. Chapter 2

David will be the first to laugh when Frank tells his friends about Karen’s eyes kindling at the decorated ceiling- crystal baubles and fairy lights strewn between fake autumn leaves that she observed with childlike wonder, before lowering her gaze back to him.

“You’re adorable.”

“Lieberman…”

“He’s not wrong,” Curtis will chime in. “Definitely not the word I would use, but he’s not wrong.”

He takes her to a small German restaurant, which is quite expensive, but the mulled wine is to die for, allegedly. They will never find out if that’s true because they both end up ordering the same beer. Dark, with a sweet finish. Not to die for, but good enough. All those lights sparkling in her hair, loose on her shoulders just like in his dreams, he could have been served muddy water and he wouldn’t have noticed as he gulped it down.

If they weren’t at a restaurant, she divulges, she’d be drinking straight from the bottle.

“We can go somewhere with no glasses next time, give you an excuse,” he chuckles in response and she lets his overconfidence go uncommented upon as she takes a sip of her beer.

It’s for the best. He should have gotten through one date first, before planning the next one; cooking for her in his kitchen, Karen leaning against the counter, inspecting his technique. His technique is impeccable, for the record. There’d be no need for inspection, but he likes imagining her taking little peeks, her chin resting on his shoulder. 

The conversation revolves mostly around friends and family, work and what they do when they aren’t at it. She knows more about him than he knows about her, which he aims to rectify by asking her one question on top of the other, while she takes her time with hers, carefully placing them between his pauses, just to see if she can get him stammering.

She doesn’t say much about her parents. Her mother is mentioned very briefly and she uses the present tense for her father, so he assumes only one of them is alive and she doesn’t like talking about it. Her associates and her friends, as it turns out, are one and the same. The time she has to spend at the office doesn’t allow her to widen her circle and the two dorks she has are a lot of work anyway, she tells him with a sigh and a smile, in much the same way she talks about her brother.

“What’s he like?”

“Sweetest guy I know,” she beams at him. “As a rule of thumb, siblings must hate each other but I adore him. And he hates hearing that, of course.”

“Yeah, I’m sure,” Frank snorts. “Just like Frankie and Lisa.”

“Do they disagree on everything?” she asks, genuinely interested, her fork hovering in front of her mouth, a bite of potato cake forgotten in the conversation.

“Most things, naturally.”

“Naturally,” she echoes him with a short, bubbling laugh.

“They found common ground in one thing though,” he tells her, blindly stabbing his pork chops. “They’re both in love with you.” And as a blush spreads on her cheeks, he adds, “Who can blame them?”

“They’re great kids,” she mumbles, finally putting the food in her mouth, a loaded silence stretching between them as she chews, which he takes to mean she’s preparing another tough question for him. “Was it difficult, quitting the army for them?”

“I never said—”

“I figured,” she smirks at him in triumph, enjoying his fluster a bit too much.

Heaven knows he was never an open book. There are few people he trusts, fewer that he opens up to and even they don’t get him sometimes. But Karen Page has worked him out.

“It wasn’t easy.”

(He won’t tell the guys any of this.)

The smirk fades from her face, replaced by sharp awareness. “You loved your job. Even the worst parts of it.” 

“Yeah, I did.”

There are times –few and far between, that has to count for something- that it takes a little death to make him feel alive. Not the prettiest side of human nature, sometimes being more comfortable in your skin when it’s covered in blood, but Karen doesn’t look away in horror, doesn’t judge him for it.

“I like having my kids know who I am when they see me though,” he says, breaking away from her gaze. She’ll lure him back soon enough. “Besides, what I do now is much safer.”

“Safer?” The ceiling lights ignite the shimmer on her lips as they part in a sardonic laugh and he can’t stop himself from imagining that color rubbing off on his shirt. “Okay, private security doesn’t put you in combat zones, I’ll give you that. But you basically get paid to take bullets for other people, how is that safe?”

The corner of his lip turns up. “That’s not what I’m paid to do.”

“But it is a risk.”

There’s risk involved in everything we do, he thinks, like him putting his heart on the line, again, knowing full well how this is going to end. “You worry about me?”

“Only about your eating habits,” she distorts the truth a little, clearing her throat and stealing a furtive look at him under her eyelashes. “Is your food okay? You’ve barely eaten half of it and you had coffee for lunch, seriously.”

Putting his fork down as a different kind of hunger begins simmering low, low, low in his belly, he almost growls, “I’m kinda full”. He wants this woman more than he wants to breathe and, sure enough, the pattern of his breath skews when she holds his eyes. Lieberman was right. She is out of his league and he’s out of his depth and he shouldn’t be allowed to touch her. He reaches for her hand regardless and she threads her fingers with his, gently squeezing.

“Looks like you had a good date in… how long has it been? Fifty years?”

“Lieberman, I swear to God…”

“No, no, it’s nice. Isn’t it nice, Curt?”

“Man, are you trying to get yourself killed? Can’t you see the crazy twinkle in his eye?”

“Oh, this? It’s just the twinkle of love.”

“That’s it, I’m done.”

As much as they’ll try to wheedle the rest of the story out of him, Frank won’t say another goddamn word.

She is the one insisting they should go, saying a firm no to dessert and emptying her glass in one long swallow, trembling as he helps her with her coat- and he’s the one sweating. Her foot tapping a restless beat against the floor of the car and his heart an accompanying drum.

“There’s something we haven’t discussed,” she begins, eyes cast out the window.

Frank had foolishly thought they’d have more time before it would come up. On the fourth date maybe, or the fifth. Or never. Not as they are approaching her apartment complex, on their first date, before he even got to kiss her. “The soulmate bullshit, right?”

“Bullshit?” She gives him a blink of disbelief. “It’s an observable phenomenon.”

His hand lands clumsily on the gear stick as he tries to change speed, slow down. “Yeah, I know.”

“They ran tests. For years.”

Underneath the hood of the car, the engine groans to a halt. He feels like groaning too. He remembers the headlines from his childhood, then the articles, slowly reduced from their three column status in page four to a brief mention in page twenty that could get easily smudged under his father’s coffee cup. 

“And do they know what’s causing it yet?” The wording is deliberate—there has to be a cause for any disease. One hand keeping a tight grip on the wheel, he taps the dashboard with the other. “Can we talk about it some other time maybe? Not tonight?”

Karen nods thoughtfully, pressing her lips together. She wouldn’t rush into a doomed marriage just to prove a point, she’s invested in this shit. But her nose doesn’t tip up in offense. “You’re not even a little bit curious?”

The only thing he’s curious about is how many shades of pink he can bring out on her cheeks, what her lipstick tastes like. “No, ma’am.”

A gleam reflects off the door handle as she pulls it, gets out of the car, doesn’t slam the door. Looks like she might let this one slide. “Should I switch to calling you ‘sir’?” she asks with a hint of laughter in her tone, when he catches up to her and seizes her hand in his, a spark snapping between their palms.

She’s trembling again and he pulls her hand to his lips, brushes them against her skin, feels them go numb with tingling, with the effort of taming the urge to press her palm firm against his mouth, down his neck, further down. “Not in public,” he chuckles.

Karen throws her head back and laughs. There’s no way she’d ever call him ‘sir’, but this might turn into a fine inside joke. _Remember on our first date, when you said the stupidest thing of all time? _He can almost feel himself blushing over the endless teasing that hasn’t even begun.

The laughter wanes, but the smile doesn’t fade and she leans her forehead to his, still catching her breath as she tries to fish her keys out of her bag with her free hand. Frank closes his eyes, keeps them closed through the _one, two, three_ beats of expectation, until Karen says—

“You’re coming upstairs,” their lips barely touching as she speaks.

Frank has never refused to obey orders from his commanding officers. He isn’t about to lose his streak.

He follows obediently as she pulls him towards the glass door, hand in hand, his fingers twitching between hers as they wait for the elevator, feeling like he could punch the call button while the dull ding sound informing them they can get in takes its time. Doors open, one of her neighbors steps out, a tall guy, one of those elegant even in sweatpants types, pausing to ask if he’ll be seeing her at the gym in the morning.

“No, I’ll be busy,” she offers a pleasant half-smile, her fingertips smoothing the tension humming through Frank’s knuckles.

As soon as the doors close, he’s pressing her up against the elevator wall to find her lipstick tastes like honey, or maybe that’s just the taste of her lips, hard and soft on his all at once. One hand gripping his waist, the other rests on the back of his neck, her keys digging into his skin, but the world is being undone and remade of stars, silver light shining behind his eyelids- the tiny jab of metal goes unnoticed.

Why can’t he pick her to be the One? Then they could have more of this, all of this, forever.

“That was…” Karen breathes when he leaves her mouth, the rest of the sentence drowned out by a moan as he lowers his head to nibble the tender skin on her neck a few moments before they arrive at her floor.

“Christ,” he chuckles against her shoulder as she lets them into her apartment. “Yeah, that was something.”

He fights the compulsion to ask her if her soulmate could do this, draw the same sounds from her, as his tongue makes her whine and writhe against the sheets—because he probably could and that is something Frank never wants to find out. Because her legs fit so well around his hips, their bodies bend so perfectly together, her hair hanging over his face, lips parting, a kiss and then another and another and another and another, until he loses count.

In the morning, he wakes up to her finger fluttering over the scars on his back. He inhales her scent from the pillow, letting it drown him as she counts in a lowered voice. “That’s a lot of scars,” he hears her say. Her palm smooths over his shoulder blade, where the skin looks stretched and painful, a crude piece of tatting that doesn’t hurt anymore, but evokes added tenderness from her all the same.

Frank turns to his side to be greeted by a quivering lip. He presses his thumb to it, as though that’s comfort enough to make it pause. “They mean I’m a lucky son of a bitch,” he mumbles, voice groggy.

Karen sits on her heels beside him, hands on her knees. The baggy t-shirt she’s wearing lets a lot of skin show, lets it glow even more in the sunshine than it did in the artificial light last night. “Luck runs out.” She sighs, her normally gentle, smiling face suddenly carved out of stone as she returns his gaze.

“Not before breakfast.” He’s feeling pretty lucky right now, with his hand stroking up the gooseflesh on her thigh, squeezing her hip. “Come on, I know a nice place.”

“My kitchen is nice too,” she tells him, lightening up and wiggling off the bed. “How do you like your eggs?”

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter how he likes them, because the eggs she serves him aren’t over easy, but he eats them and replies “Best I’ve ever had,” with pure joy on his face, when she asks if they’re any good. It’s worth it, just to see her smiling to him over the vapors of her mug.

“It could become a thing, you know,” she says.

“Breakfast at your place?”

“Or yours.”

Her cheeks flush. The whole world brightens. He hasn’t felt peaceful in a while but there’s peace here, in the gold of her lashes flitting like wings, in the relaxed graze of her foot against his ankle as she crosses her legs, in the delicate clumsiness of her elbow bumping into his when she leans on the table.

Frank scoops another fork full of eggs from his plate into his mouth, then nods, his own smile stashed behind a swill of coffee. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

And he’s grateful that she’s letting him have more of this, all of this, for a little while longer.

No surprise, it becomes a thing.

Seeing as she’s not that great a cook and Frank is extremely proud of his cooking, they compromise on Karen being in charge of breakfast. Getting his eggs just right every single time will eventually convince him that she can be trusted in the kitchen. She’ll still leave the cooking to him, of course. It’s the acknowledgement she wants.

Well-versed as she is in the matter of visitation rights, she deems having Frank all to herself on weeknights is more than favorable, even if the highlight of some of those nights is him falling asleep with his head on her lap while she works. His weekends belong to his children, and as often as they ask to see her, she’s aware that “dad’s friend” can’t be around all the time.

For their sake, they have to be discreet about their relationship for a while, the way people who aren’t soulmates should be. Maria doesn’t hide hers and the kids don’t love it, but they’re not making a big deal about it either. She’s pretty sure their quiet understanding extends to Frank and her, but it will remain exactly like this, quiet, at least for a few months.

She could be happy being his soulmate without being his soulmate. She could go on like this forever, small steps, delirious embraces, hasty kisses as each heads their own way, _I love you_ clearly spelled out in his eyes, in hers, no open declaration of love from either side, save from in their touches. His cheek resting against her collarbone- _I love you_, her hand flat against his heartbeat- _I love you_, their foreheads joining- _me too, me too, me too_.

It may be something of a mixed blessing but it works. For her. All it does for Frank is strip him of his choice.

It isn’t possible, it _shouldn’t_ be possible to keep this secret from him. And yet, and yet…

She catches him inspecting her skin again, his face a little more wistful than necessary. After having scoured every inch of her skin in every kind of light and finding not a single blemish, he should have worked up the courage to pry at the subject. “Are you curious now?”

“What?”

“You’re wondering what my mark is.” She slips into one of his shirts, slowly doing up the buttons. “I don’t have one. My soulmate has it on him.”

She can almost see his gut twist.

“I don’t care.”

When he leans in for a kiss, she doesn’t pull back. She loops her arm around his neck, presses a warm palm to his chest and purrs a breath into him. “You have to let me tell you at some point.”

“Karen, listen…” His hand moves desperately to grab hers and she wraps her pinky around his thumb, loose, comfortable. There’s no need for dramatics.

What she wouldn’t give to be able to hear his internal monologue, the contempt for those goddamn soulmates, all those futures surrendered without question to a beguiling siren song, even if all sirens do is lure people to their deaths, stealing their independence, their free will. He might not use those exact words, but it would be something like that, she imagines, and—

“I… I’m falling for you, okay? Christ, I’ve already fallen, I’m flat on the ground. And I’d rather stay there than be anywhere else, with anyone else.”

She wasn’t expecting that. She’d figured she would be the one to say it first.

“Now, I’m not trying to guilt you into anything. When the time comes for you to break my heart, you do it, you do it without thinking twice. Until then, I want this. That’s my choice to make. And just cause I think this stuff’s stupid, doesn’t mean I think you are. I’m not looking down my nose at you or anything.” He pauses, hides his face in the crook of her neck, trying to lose himself in the tangle of her hair. “We’ll talk about it, okay? We will. I’m just not ready yet.”

“Okay.” Unweaving herself from the embrace, she grabs the notebook from her bag, a pen too, clicking it like she’s pulling the safety off a gun, and stares him down. “When will you be ready?”

He narrows his eyes at her, but a grin is hovering on the corner of his mouth. He doesn’t think she’s serious. “Five months?” he chuckles.

She flips pages until she gets to the date he designated by his little joke, a quirk of her eyebrow challenging him to be more ambitious than that as the pen touches the page. “Going once,” she warns.

“Six,” he corrects himself, “make it six.”

Then she marks the altered date and puts the notebook away, making him sigh in relief once it’s out of sight, as if that changes anything.

There’s one little change though; no more skulls bunched up in her notes. Maybe it’s their proximity that has made it stop? No point in calling out for somebody who’s already here?

“If you’re sticking around that long, don’t you think you should let me meet your friends?” he asks, putting on his brave face.

“If I show you mine, will you show me yours?”

She’s heard some… interesting stories about his friends, she’d actually like to meet them. And in all honesty, she’d like to delay hers meeting him. It’s not that she doesn’t trust them to keep their mouths shut, it’s just that their mouths seem to have a mind of their own sometimes, especially when drinking is involved.

Frank’s hand immediately rises to the back of his neck, trying to rub the awkwardness away. “You sure about that?”

“Does the competition scare you, sir?” She trails a fingertip along his jaw line, biting her lip at the way the word triggers him. They’ve just put on clothes, for God’s sake, and he’s ready to go again. “Think we’ll end up charming each other and forget all about you?”

Luckily, they don’t end up landing on the floor when he pounces on her, because she happens to be standing right by his bed. Its frame is known to squeal with the slightest shift of weight and now it makes a whole new agonized sound. One of these days, it’s going to shatter under them and she doubts the experience will be fun.

“Remember how we talked about you getting a new bed?” she gasps as they sink into the comforter’s fluffy down. “Can you do it before this one falls apart?”

“It’s sturdier than it seems.” He presses his lips against the giggle in her throat, slowly making his way up to her mouth.

There’s fire on his tongue. There’s fire and it catches and it catches and it catches— how can he not see everything going up in flames, the burst, the glow and the blaze, and afterwards, that raw, terrifying thing blossoming from the ashes?

How can he not even want to look at such beauty?

The boys are on their best behavior when they all finally gather at Josie’s for drinks. No snickering jokes, no innuendos. They can’t seem to keep quiet about soulmates at the office, insisting that nothing stays hidden under the sun and that the sooner she tells Frank the truth, the better it will be, but now they’re acting like the most angelic of angels. She has to give them props for that.

Frank is wonderfully laid back, leaning against the wall, a bit too far from her, but his hand flies over to her thigh every now and then, a quick flicker of a touch under the table. He’s unsure about their boundaries as a group. His friends aren’t like that, they would still give him shit even if he stood at a five-foot distance from her at all times. If he thinks that her friends are going to be much different, he’s in for a surprise. She can tell from the look on Foggy’s face, he’s plotting. Perhaps she should be worried, but a pleasant little buzz clouds her judgement and when their eyes meet, he puts her mind at ease with a quick wink.

“Karen said Danny Rand has hired your company?” Matt says, throwing Frank a friendly grin.

“Are you guys close friends or does he just have everybody call him Danny?”

“We’ve only met him a few times, so probably the latter,” Foggy admits with a nod to which Frank’s lip snarls up. “Is he causing you trouble?”

“Not yet, but I’m afraid he will,” he sighs. “First name basis leads to him thinking we’re buddies and it’s a short ride from that to taking selfies with us and posting them on the goddamn internet.”

Foggy’s shoulders shake while he envisions the scenario. “Selfies are a very real danger with him.”

“I’m sure Rand takes his safety, as well as that of his family, very seriously,” Matt disagrees, frowning like he’s the lone, desperate adult in a room full of kindergarteners.

“Hey, let me tell you what’s going on here,” Foggy droops a loose arm on his shoulder. “Frank is giving us as little information about his client as possible, while maintaining a polite and friendly atmosphere. We’re all aware Danny Rand is a responsible guy, right, Frank?”

“All I know is my job will be even more difficult, if my face is on Instagram,” he raises his eyebrows, tongue clicking. He’s said too much already.

Karen shifts in her seat to accommodate the rod growing in her spine, making her nerves prickle. She’s been too busy pinpointing Frank’s disquieted moments that her own have been stacking up, unchecked.

“No offense,” Foggy giggles, “but you don’t have an Instagram face.”

“No?” Frank scowls despite the amusement in his tone and turns to her. “What if I grow my hair out, braid it or something? Think any modeling agencies will consider signing me?”

Foggy can barely contain his laughter by this point, exhilarated little squeaks escaping his mouth while he tries to hush them behind his palm. Even Matt is in good spirits, his back straight, nowhere near the point of collapse. It will be even better when Marci gets here. There will be too many voices for Karen to be able to focus exclusively on the one in her head.

“If we’re talking about a change of career, you can come up with something better.” Her reply is only fifty— okay, sixty percent of a joke. “No braids, please,” she chuckles and empties her beer, setting it down with the rest of the empty bottles on their table.

“You’re just gonna clip my wings like that?” he laughs against her shoulder, plants a kiss on it and gets up before her friends start feeling uncomfortable at the sudden display of affection. “Another round?” he asks, receiving a general hum of agreement in reply.

Foggy jumps up from his seat. “I’ll go with you.”

Like he magically knows when they’re out of earshot, Matt knocks a knuckle against the table. “I could have sworn you were wearing a sandalwood based perfume when you came in, but now I’m picking up essence of fear.”

“Do you know how creepy it is when you do that?” she chides, more annoyed at getting caught than his intrusiveness.

With a somewhat shaky voice, he continues, unperturbed. “You’ve made your choice, Karen. It’s done. Why waste energy on worrying all the time?”

She casts a sideways glance in Frank’s direction, his broad shoulders shaking with laughter at something Foggy is saying, thinks about the scar-covered skin under his shirt, and her heart swells and sinks at the same moment.

“Is it because you’re terrified of ending up like me?” Matt asks. Whatever emotion is pooling in his eyes is hidden behind his glasses. Sometimes she thinks that’s the only reason he wears them.

“Don’t…” She squeezes his hand in hers. “Don’t say that. I don’t think of you as some miserable thing to pity.”

“You do.” The blue neon hits his face at just the right angle to make him look sickly, but his thumb presses down on hers, keeping her hand where it is just as she’s about to withdraw it, manifesting more toughness than he has since… Well, since he lost his other half. “And I don’t blame you. Some days, I wake up in a fog and I don’t understand how the world is still spinning or why it matters if it is. I know it’s pathetic, Karen, I know.”

His pain is too much to watch. She can’t even begin to contemplate how difficult it would be to endure.

“How come you never asked me—” His chest heaves with a sob muffled by the music and his lips pressing together. “You went to Foggy with all your questions, but you haven’t asked me any. Why is that?”

Karen shakes her head at herself. “It’s…”

“Because there’s only one thing you’d ask and you already know the answer.”

Frank turns around in time to see their hands separating quickly.

He’d thought of Murdock as the invisible partner, a shadow moving behind a closed door being the only token of his existence when Frank used to frequent their office. But he’s pretty damn visible now, the imprint of his thumb flaring on Karen’s skin like a fucking stamp. They’re just friends, he reminds himself. Her boys, like brothers, like Kevin.

She’s been tense for a while, not too much, but whatever Murdock has told her has her laying both palms on her lap, rubbing them against her skirt as her fingers shiver.

Placing a bottle in front of her, Frank kisses the top of her head. “Everything okay?”

She gives a jerky nod, breathes in deeply through her nose, smiles up at him and doesn’t fool him even for a minute.

Debatably clean glasses are handed to everyone and Foggy stations a dark bottle in the middle of the table. Karen’s eyes widen as soon as she sees the label. “Oh, no.” He knows that look. He’s tasted regret at the bottom of a bottle too.

“I was challenged,” he says, sitting down next to her again.

“After a long, serious discussion—” Nelson begins.

“You were gone for five minutes,” she glares at him.

“—it was decided that there’s only one way for Frank to become one of us. He has to drink the eel.”

“I never drank the eel,” Murdock raises an objecting finger in the air, to save Frank from the horror, but all he manages to do is poke jealousy deeper into his heart.

“He has to drink the eel, Matt!” Foggy hisses. “Don’t ruin this for me!”

“Pretty sure that’s a worm,” Frank mumbles, arms crossed on the table, examining the back of the bottle. How bad can it be?

Karen takes a greedy gulp of beer and gives the worm-eel drink a grimace of resentment. She spins to face him, her knee bumping into his, and squeezes his thigh. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Didn’t you hear me say it was decided?” complains Foggy. “Stop trying to talk him out of it!”

A deep laugh rises up from the lowest part of Frank’s belly as he covers Karen’s hand with his. He has nothing to worry about. “Yeah, I do.”

By the time Ms. Stahl arrives, the bottle is almost empty. It’s clear that Karen has helped with getting closer to the invertebrate, her hand floundering up to a weak salute, no other part of her budging even slightly, to keep from unsettling her carefully arranged position of being draped over Frank’s arm. Foggy has done his –much smaller- part too and Marci immediately recognizes him as the instigator of it all, especially when he raises his glass up to her nose, which crumples in revulsion.

“Care for a taste?”

“Keep that thing away from me,” she warns him. “You’re drinking it too?”

Frank extends his hand to greet the newcomer when she shifts her attention to him. “Yes, ma’am.”

Her grip is firm, willful. “You’ll fit right in with these idiots,” she says mid-handshake.

Murdock is the only one refraining from the sudden chorus of laughter that breaks out, but his mouth does curve up for a while. Why is that guy so stiff? What’s his deal?

He makes sure to ask Karen as they’re heading back to her place, all of her weight thrown on him in blind trust that he’ll get her there safely, no matter how unsteady he is on his feet as well.

“H-he wasn’t always like that,” she mumbles. “His girl—soulmate, she died, almost a year ago. Hasn’t been the same since.”

“Shit, I’m sorry.” There must be others like him out there, it’s just that he doesn’t know any of them, not personally, not well enough to notice the wear and tear. He feels like such an asshole now, allowing jealousy to make a tender gesture between friends seem like a crime. “That’s…”

“Tragic,” Karen says, stiffening up, wrenching away from him to stand on her own. “Tragic and heartbreaking and t-terrifying.”

That’s why she keeps choosing him, why she’s delaying the inevitable, despite knowing who her soulmate is. He’s her comfort blanket. He’s safe, can’t devastate her entire life, can’t tear her apart like that. She’s a smart woman.

“You don’t want that, do you, Karen?” he dares to ask, as if whichever answer she gives won’t hurt exactly the same.

Her eyes appear sober as she observes him, a deep breath stuck in her lungs, coming out sharp when she finally opens her mouth to respond. “I don’t know.” The way her voice trembles makes it sound more like a ‘yes’ and she can probably tell, hastily rearranging her features into a tipsy grin. “So you drank the eel.”

“That,” he pulls her into his arm, “was a worm.”

“What did it taste like?”

Disappointment knitting his eyebrows together, he lets out a short sigh. “Like I can’t kiss you for the rest of the night. Not sure about tomorrow either.”

“I can wait,” she giggles into his ear.


	3. Chapter 3

Quid pro quo, Karen says. He drank with her friends, she gets to drink with his. It’s only fair.

Fairness has nothing to do with it. Words cannot express how much of a pain in the ass Lieberman is.

And he would have been bad enough on his own, but he’s had Curt’s support all night. Which is unusual because stepping in and chastising David has always been Curtis’s department, for the simple reason that if Frank had to do it, he’d probably go at it by shoving a fist in the spook’s face. It feels like he’s been speaking to David exclusively in growls lately. Can’t see that changing in the foreseeable future.

Especially since he brings up the time the three of them tried to start a band. That particular anecdote is where Curtis draws the line. “We were fifteen. We didn’t know any better,” he says, looking straight at Karen, but with a blurred threat aimed in David’s direction.

The only way to make things worse would be if Karen asked the two couples how they met. Now, Frank knows Delia’s no nonsense attitude would keep the story short and simple, but goddamn if the Liebermans don’t love to make theirs as long as they can. So they dreamed of each other way before meeting. What all dreams have in common is the fact that they fade in the light of day. Specifics get obscured by the passage of time. How come David and Sarah can garnish their story with so many elaborate details?

Thank the stars and the whole entire galaxy, Karen doesn’t ask. She’s merciful like that.

“It’s really cruel, what you guys are doing. It’s like…” Frank hears him confide to her while he’s busy uncorking another bottle in the kitchen. His absence isn’t the only reason Lieberman is opening up to her like this, ignoring Sarah’s discreet whispers to be good. His face has been flushed for about half an hour, a nice vibrant red, the pour-your-heart-out kind, words slurred and everything. “Like somebody bringing you a puppy and then saying you can’t keep it.”

Her silence makes Frank’s heart dip into his stomach.

“You’re wonderful, Karen. Really, truly wonderful. But, you know, you know, my buddy…” A pause for a polite hiccup. “My buddy’s always going on about how he can take it, right, because we nag him all the time. He’s a big boy, he can take care of himself. He says it so much, it stopped sounding true ages ago and—”

“What did I tell you about bothering my girl, spook?” he grumbles, handing Sarah her refilled glass first and then doing the same for Karen. 

With her free hand, she gently pats Lieberman’s, as if he needs the encouragement. “Don’t let him scare you. You’re not bothering me.” Then she brings the glass to her lips, turning her eyes to Frank, smiling, proud of the alliance she’s forming.

“Hey, hey, I have a question.” Lieberman is snickering, which means Frank’s troubles aren’t even close to being over. “Does Frank tone down the barking when you’re alone?”

Karen’s eyes blink so rapidly they begin to make him dizzy. “Frank doesn’t bark.”

Both Curtis’s and David’s eyebrows shoot up in perfect synchronicity, a motion so harmonized it could have been rehearsed. He knows them well enough to believe it was. They look at each other sideways, their mouths curving downwards to express deep and genuine befuddlement in the most comical way humanly possible. Sarah shakes her head and Delia concurs in disapproval of their little act by shutting her eyes.

“Got him confused with someone else,” Curtis says, Lieberman follows it up with a dubious “Most soft-spoken guy I’ve ever met” and Frank glares at them. His best friends in the world. Those bastards.

“If I were you, I’d be more worried about his bite,” Karen snorts as he settles beside her on the couch.

Curtis chokes on something that isn’t laughter, immediately wagging his finger at Frank. “That only happened once,” he says and tries to change the subject, but the secret’s out now and Delia demands more information.

Frank’s knee bumps against Karen’s as he leans backwards, and they share a conspiratorial grin.

_Should I?_

_You damn well should._

It’s a sight to behold, Curtis hanging his head as she begins telling the story, doing absolutely nothing to stop her because he knows, he _knows_ he deserves it. Watching Curtis fall, David stays very very quiet. There are too many stories ending with his ass bare and he doesn’t want them revealed. But these things have a way of coming out when you least expect them. He’ll get his, sometime or other. 

Later in the night, after everyone has left and invitations to dinners and brunches have been exchanged, Karen slips next to him in bed, wearing an ancient t-shirt of his, a smile teetering on her lips as she lays her head on the pillow, gives him a sidelong peek and rolls straight into his embrace.

“I’ll trade you,” he says. “Give me Nelson and Murdock, and you can have those clowns.”

A giggle escapes from her mouth into the darkness. “I’m not giving you my boys.”

“Didn’t think so.”

“And you don’t really want to give yours away either.” The crinkles of amusement leave her face as if ironed out and she brushes her lips over his forehead. “You never said there was any nagging.”

“Workplace harassment I call it. I threatened to sue.”

It’s nothing too serious, just a normal amount of concern infused with the odd jab at his mental faculties. After tonight, their material will definitely be enriched with how Karen gets him flustered at times. She has armed them against him, he tells her, and he’ll never hear the end of it.

“Poor you.”

“Yeah,” he says, rubbing his nose up the column of her throat, his laugh warming her skin as he runs his hand underneath the shirt to let his fingertips dance along her spine. It feels like holding a sunny day in his arms. “Poor me.”

Entirely unsurprisingly, those two jerks are still at it the following night, while he tries his hardest not to reply to the chatter in his earpiece. A little hazing is fine, but looking after Rand in a hall full of people is much more challenging with Lieberman’s quips thrown into the mix. And with the cherries listening in too, their subdued cackling in his ear. At least they don’t participate in the teasing, or they’d have their heads bitten off.

Which one of those fools gets to spend the night at Karen’s though? The last laugh is his. “How about we focus on the job, boys?”

Curtis gives him an inconspicuous nod from the far end of the room. “We’ve got to find some way to pass the time.”

“Hey, guys?” Frank would growl into the mic in his lapel, if not for the change in tone. David sounds wound up all of a sudden. “I’m catching some weird movement on the floor in front of you.”

Without interrupting Rand from his pleasant conversation, Frank angles slightly away to get a better look at the crowd. Most guests are clustered together in groups of three or more, drinking and laughing, sparing maybe a few comments on tonight’s cause. Nobody’s on their own, apart from the man squeezing through the herd, approaching them with taut steps, his right hand sliding under his jacket.

Wasn’t he on the guest list? And how in the world, how the hell did he manage to bring a gun in here? If he shoots, among all these people, someone will get hurt. Not Rand, but someone.

“Port side, Curt. You see him?”

Curtis is already moving. “On it. You know what to do.”

“Mister Rand…” Frank gives their client a discreet tap on the shoulder. “We need to go.” From the corner of his eye, he sees the man pick up his step while Rand voices a naïve comment about wrapping up. His job is simple. Get Rand out, get him to safety, fast. Hanging back until he’s said his cordial goodbyes isn’t part of the escape plan. “We’re going. Now.”

He keeps his voice low, but a few people notice the tension. They know something isn’t right and they begin scuttling away, stumbling as they try to spot the source of danger. Frank snags Rand by the shoulder and shoves him towards the exit. Maybe they can make it out before the panic escalates.

“Jake is out front with the car,” David’s voice snaps over the radio, a little breathless.

Someone screams. He knows the gun is now in full view. Voices rise and Rand halts to glance behind but Frank forces him forward, going even faster as he shields him with his body. The first shot goes off, underscored by a round of high-pitched shouts. Then a second and a third. He doesn’t know which one’s singe he’s feeling. Figuring it out isn’t his highest priority.

Guy’s a shit shot. He had a clear target and he missed it. Doesn’t mean Curt is safe though. Close range complicates things.

“Frank…” Rand says, his voice something between a shriek and a groan, his face pale,flecks of blood sprinkled wide across the collar of his shirt.

“You keep moving.”

Frank will help clear her mind when he gets here. His nagging about familiarity getting in the way of business relaxes her, and he always has tons of complaints to relay after each Rand gig. For the time being, she flicks through several channels until settling on WHiH to provide background noise to her research. Or to distract her from it, which might be preferable at this point.

She has a good amount of complaining to do as well. It’s usually about how the legislation on soulmates is far from comprehensive, all they gray areas that make the simplest tasks seem unworkable –the closest she ever to mentioning soulmates without him casting gloomy glares at the floor. But not tonight. Tonight she needs to vent about husbands attached more to their money than their wives. She should take her time at the library tomorrow, comb through the index and— 

“…_members of his personal security were reportedly injured during the assault, Daniel Rand was escorted safely out of the building. The perpetrator, whose identity has not been announced to the press, is in police custody. No further information is being released at this time. Reporting live from Sony Hall, I’m Trish Walker, for_…”

That’s a distraction alright. It disrupts her central nervous system, paralyzing every muscle in her body. She stares blankly at the screen as the image switches to a blonde with a plastered smile. How badly were they injured? What were their names? They don’t matter, do they, as long as the billionaire is safe and sound.

Wouldn’t she know if he was hurt?

The world is steady, the ground isn’t shaking and when she gets up from the couch, her spine isn’t sagging –her ribcage keeps shrinking though, too small for her lungs to draw in air, palms cold as though made of ice. Frank is fine. She turns off the TV, grabs her car keys. They rattle in her palm. What would driving there accomplish anyway? She’d only be in the way. She puts the keys down again.

Wouldn’t something have snapped, a synapse broken, like—

She doesn’t mean to shudder at the thought but the tremor that goes through her is irrepressible. Did Matt know the moment it happened? They were all at the office when he got the call. Everything had seemed normal until then. With her dad, things were very different. But maybe that was just because he was there, witnessing it, living through it.

She gets her phone, finds Frank’s number. The screen doesn’t register her touch. She has to press dial twice. She needs to remind herself what she’s feeling right now isn’t fear, just a watered down form of it, just anxiety twisting her stomach into a knot. There’s nothing to be afraid of. Frank isn’t hurt. Frank has to be fine.

He doesn’t pick up.

She tries again and again, until someone answers.

“On the news already?” Curtis sounds weary, drained.

No part of her mouth seems particularly willing to help with getting words out, but she manages a shaky yes, gagging on the clump of despair blocking her airway. He’s going to tell her any moment now, he’s going to tell her—

“Don’t believe everything you hear on TV. We’re all fine.” The kindness in his voice has the power to fix all the wrongs in the world. It even hushes the sound of blood in her ears. “Frank—”

“That’s bullshit!” Frank can be heard shouting in the background, the words grinding out of his throat like a rockslide. This must be what David referred to as barking. It’s new and harsh and it’s lovely. “Doesn’t matter if we got the guy, he shouldn’t have made it inside the building in the first place. Jesus Christ, what have I been saying since day one? We fight, we failed. We failed!”

Curtis sighs. “Frank is busy terrorizing my men. Maybe you can convince him to stop and go see a medic.”

“He hasn’t?”

“No, Karen, he has not,” he says, completely and utterly exasperated.

Meek mumbling reaches her ear as Curtis holds the phone away from his. The men in question, trying to defend themselves. “Phone call for Castle,” she hears Curtis say, then _I’m not your personal assistant_, some shuffling as the phone exchanges hands, the switch from the feral sound to the silken way Frank speaks her name and a final remark from Curtis. Something about giving _that poor woman an aneurysm_.

“I should’ve have called but—”

“I was just—”

“—it’s kinda crazy here. Worried. I know, I’m sorry…”

“God, of course it is. I didn’t mean to—”

“No, hey, I’m glad you called. Just… Gimme a second.” His footsteps, heavy, echo through wooden floors, a door opens and closes and then there’s only a clear silence, waiting to be filled in. “Looks like I’m gonna be here for a while.”

“Makes sense. You—”

“Are you okay?”

“— have to—Are you?”

“All good.”

“Really?”

“It’s just a graze, barely even felt it. So you stop worrying now, yeah?”

“As soon as you let a medic check you out.”

“I don’t need a medic for—”

“Regardless…”

“If it’ll make you feel better…”

“It will.”

“You got it.”

“Good.” She listens to his breathing, holds onto it like it’s a soothing instrumental. “When you say graze...”

“It’s nothing, Karen, stop thinking about it.” Neither of them speaks for a while. The beats pass, dragging, dragging— “Hope we don’t lose the client.”

“After saving his life? I doubt it.”

“It was a close cut.”

It was, she thinks. It was. “Were you shot?”

“Occupational hazards, right?”

“You took a bullet for him.”

“Let’s not do this over the phone.”

“Will you—”

“Don’t know how long I’ll be.”

“For f— It doesn’t matter.”

“You sure?”

“Is it worse than you’re telling me?”

“No, I swear i—”

“I want to see you.”

“Yeah, I want to see you too.”

“Then I’ll wait.”

“Okay… Okay, I’ll come home.”

The realization of what he’s said must hit him later because he doesn’t change the wording, letting it stream between them for a second before ending the call. It creates a flutter in her heart but, as she recalls, that fluttering isn’t free of charge. An arm and a leg would still be expensive. Nothing like having your core crack open and your spirit sapped though. Quite a steep price.

The doorbell rings sometime after midnight.

Leaning against the doorframe, arms folded, she stares down the hallway as if staring can compel the elevator to hoist its passenger up to her floor faster. Its doors eventually slide open, Frank walks out, and the only reason she doesn’t run up to him is that he’s covering the distance in a hurry. He gives her a quick once-over, then takes her hand in his, squeezes her fingers.

An undertone of tension rolls off him, just to climb straight up her back when she notices the sleeve of his jacket, ripped below the shoulder, where the bullet must have gone through, the dark gray fabric steeped in blood. He follows her stare and raises his shoulder without wincing.

His lip curls on one side, his head dipping slightly. “Hey,” he says, voice brimming with that corrosive softness. “It ain’t half as bad as it looks.”

They’re going to have a conversation about the definition of a graze at some point because, as far as she’s concerned, something that needs seven sutures to close definitely isn’t one. Watching him undress –shirt and jacket both ruined- she decides not to go apeshit over the inaccuracy. Frank seems more upset about the damage done to his clothes than to himself.

He has some reservations about describing how it all went down, but he caves at her insistence. It takes him all of five minutes to provide her a step by step account of what sounds like happened in under than two. It takes her one minute to imagine every possible way things could have gone wrong.

“Christ, I hate it when you’re this quiet. I don’t know what you’re thinking.” Frank looks at her, not just examining for figurative wounds, really looks at her, and a flicker of unease darkens his eyes.

She chuckles stiffly. “Me neither.”

If she’s being honest with herself –and she has to be, because she sure as hell isn’t being honest with him- the thought of breaking things off crosses her mind, ever so fleetingly. This is exactly what she was trying to steer clear from. The worry, the panic. His blood doesn't tinge just his clothes.

“It’s stressful, Karen, I get it.”

“Do you?”

The injured arm must hurt stretching over to her and she wants to tell him to take it easy, but as his fingers fold around her shoulder, she has no voice for scolding. It’s funny how light she feels then, like she’s floating a little above the floor, even when he pulls her against him and rasps out a sigh. “Yeah, I do.” He pauses to place a kiss on her forehead. “But that’s my life. I don’t know how to be anything else.”

The thing is that when her worst fear comes true, it will come without foreboding. There will be no Trish Walker on the news telling her to brace herself. It will simply happen, like a flash, a little click, no more than that, and no word coming out of Curtis’s mouth will be able to repair the irreparable and the world will keep spinning and it won’t matter a damn if it does.

“I kinda like you the way you are, Castle,” she says.

“You kinda like me, huh?” he laughs a short laugh, bumps his nose to hers and bends his head to find her lips.

Gravity completely leaves the room.

There are no free rides in this world and the price for flying is crashing, in the end. Though the tiny voice of fear is still questioning whether it’s worth it, Frank is kissing her, perfectly spelling out the answer.

They’re one month down, five to go. She’s pretty sure he’s counting too, but he never says anything about it. Still, they sleep tangled up in each other, a jumble of limbs, an arm hooked around a knee, her hair in his face, pressed between her shoulder blades. A lovely mess, where her heart finds its rest.

(Four.)

“Frank?”

“Hmm?” he murmurs, half asleep.

He’s breathing warm in the darkness of her bedroom, a light from the street spilling over his shoulder, making that broad, angry scar gleam silver. She touches it with her lips to pacify it. “Tell me about your tattoo.”

“What d’you want to know?”

“Who drew it?”

“I did.” With his eyes still closed, his hand crawling up her hip, he smiles. “Drew it on a napkin, gave it to the tattoo guy.”

“Are you telling me you’re an artist?”

“Does it look like art to you?” Her giggle makes him pop one eye open, then quickly close it again. “Turned out pretty okay, for a napkin doodle.”

“What did Maria think about it?”

“I wanted it to be a sign that I’m tough shit, you know, the Biggest Bad, and she thought it was cute…” he says with a sighing smirk.

She can’t help but consider it a seal of approval. “I have to agree.”

“Of course you do,” he says, voice heavy and raspy as he pulls her closer, and when she burrows her face in his chest, he holds her tight in his arm. She listens to his breath become shallow as he sinks away from her, into sleep, a hazy smile still hanging on his lips.

(Three.)

Frank tells her to stop shoving her toothbrush in her purse each morning she leaves his apartment. There’s a perfectly good holder in the bathroom for that.

“The kids will see it.”

“So?”

“So, they will know.” Won’t a difficult conversation ensue? A conversation that he wasn’t too keen on having at first, seeing as he thought their relationship had an expiration date and his children were better off not knowing exactly how intimate said relationship was.

“You think my kids are stupid?” He’s smiling as he wipes a splotch of toothpaste off her chin and takes the toothbrush from her hand to store it next to his. “They’ve probably figured it out already.”

“But this is different. They will have questions.”

“And it’s my job to answer them,” he says, calm, not at all gloomy.

With that, Karen knows for certain he’s not counting anymore. Maybe that’s a good thing.

(Two.)

“Foggy put up a fight too and look how that worked out for him.” Marci’s nose wrinkles adorably as she gestures to the guests sipping fancy drinks out of fancy glasses. Her eyes sparkle when her gaze lands on him. “He may have enlisted Matt and your boyfriend to help him shoulder the weight of talking to my colleagues, but don’t you think for a moment he doesn’t want this.”

While Foggy is indeed inclined towards smaller gatherings, Karen doesn’t doubt this engagement party has not only his compliance, but his enthusiastic sanction as well. Underneath the nervousness, he’s happy. Really, beautifully happy.

“Frank is different,” she sighs.

“Oh, please,” Marci scoffs, empties her glass. “You want to believe he’s different. He isn’t, nobody is. That’s the whole point. We all want to place our hearts somewhere safe.” She looks so tender for a moment that Karen can’t even fathom how Foggy could have thought she was the devil incarnate. “Seriously, what do you think is going to happen?”

They might set a record for being the first soulmates to ever break up, that’s what she thinks. But as Frank leaves the pack of lawyers and approaches them, she simply shrugs. Whatever happens will happen. 

“I hope you two aren’t talking about legislation because those guys can’t seem to stop,” he says with the glazed look of a man drowning in boredom.

“We were gossiping about you actually,” Marci tells him, disregarding Karen’s glare as she whirls away airily to join her fiancé.

Frank rubs the smirk budding on his lips with his hand, then leans his elbows on the tall table. If there’s anything she’d like to disclose, she’s going to do it without him having to ask.

“Do you want to do this again?”

“Talk to lawyers? Guess I have to, unless you and I are gonna start communicating in sign language,” he chuckles.

“No, I mean the engagement, wedding, kids.”

Just like that, the timer starts ticking again. He leans forward even more, like he’s planning on banging his head against the table. “Does it matter what I want? It ain’t happening. One divorce was enough for me.” He stands upright, back straight like an arrow. “And what lawyer would I pick this time? Grossman?” he huffs, trying to bring some humor into the conversation. “I thought we weren’t doing this yet.”

“Come on, Frank,” she rests her chin on his shoulder, so close that her eyelashes tickle his cheek, and he puts his arm around her, more for support than anything else. “We’re just talking.”

“You’ve picked a loaded subject,” he groans, undoing a button on his shirt, one-handed, beads of sweat dotting his jugular, “so why don’t you go first?”

In most cases, offense isn’t really the best defense, but she doesn’t comment on that. “I can’t tell you if I’d do it again, because I’ve never been married.”

“Jesus Christ…” he groans once more. “Alright, yeah, I want that. Guess I’m a simple kind of guy.” He sounds angry with himself, almost as if not wanting those things would make them more compatible. “And I don’t want the modest stuff either. I want y—my girl in a white dress, and everybody looking at her to think ‘he’s a lucky son of a bitch’. Because I am, or… I would be.”

Karen has never quite pictured herself in a white dress. On the few occasions she’d given the matter some thought, a t-shirt and a pair of jeans would do as she’d walk to City Hall in her sneakers. But his way sounds so much better. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“Yeah, well…” he sighs. “Luck runs out.”

“But not before breakfast,” she says, planting a short but passionate kiss on his cheek.

Looking her in the eye for a moment, he breathes with relief, shakes his shoulders loose. “Thank God for that.”

(One.)

Karen is asleep. He’s been lying still, watching her almost without breathing, for about an hour. He can’t change his waking habits, but he has to respect hers. He’s going to have to try and leave the bed without disturbing her, which means he has to forgo the usual kiss on her forehead. It isn’t often that she gets to sleep in and she’s asked him not to wake her up, forgetting that despite it being the beginning of the weekend, there’s no snoozing once the kids get here.

She stirs the moment his feet touch the floor. “Five minutes,” she mumbles as he sneaks out of the room.

The kids are delivered to his door ten minutes later and their excitement is loud enough to raise the dead. To no avail he asks them to, please, please, tone it down just a tiny bit while he makes them pancakes. They want a day of fun and they want Karen to join them as soon as possible.

The noise draws her out of the bedroom, clothes pulled on hastily, the sluggish smile playing on her face framed by hair tousled by sleep. “Hey, guys,” is all she manages to say before Lisa slams into her, clasping her into a hug that cuts off her breath.

“Hey,” Junior says with a nod, making his voice deeper, more manly.

In an admirable attempt to save her brother from further embarrassment, Lisa redirects Karen’s attention to trivia about her favorite dinosaur. Frank never knew she had a favorite dinosaur, let alone which one it was, but of course Lisa would be the one to pick this piece of information out of her. With the two of them engaged in conversation, Frank turns to his son with a face of disbelief and a rumble of a whisper. “What was that?”

“What?” he says in the same tone.

He knows another little boy who likes pretending he’s a big man. Goes by the name of Zach Lieberman. His influence is showing. “I’m sorry, sir. See, I thought you were my kid, who I was looking forward to spend time with today. But you sound like a grown man, too busy for carousels and childish things like that.”

“Dad, cut it out,” Frankie whines in his normal voice.

“You cut it out,” Frank warns, gently poking his son’s nose, and only after they’ve exchanged a look of silent agreement does he go back to making those pancakes.

Frankie continues his whining as he drapes himself over the back of the couch. “Do you always have to talk about dinosaurs?” He’s clearly uninterested in Diplodocus or Apatosaurus or whatever it’s called.

“Are you seriously going to tell me you don’t care about those great big lizards at all?” says Karen and Lisa clears her throat.

“Not lizards.”

“My mistake,” Karen nods. “Reptiles.”

Somewhat reluctant, Frankie admits “There is one…”

Karen turns to Frank with a smile barely refraining from turning into a wink, the glimmer of a _gotcha_ in her eye.

He should have kissed her when he got out of bed.

(He’s sure he’s forgetting something, but to hell with it.)

The weather’s getting warmer and the kids look like they’re about to melt as they’re running around, trying to snare the ball Lieberman’s throwing. Frank doesn’t know if it’s the lack of practice or the lack of talent, but his friend is terrible at playing catch. He suspects that’s half the fun their children are deriving from the game.

“Save him,” Karen whispers a laugh into his ear.

But watching from the picnic table as David tries to catch the ball with one hand and failing every single time is too much fun, and he gets to enjoy his coffee while doing it. “Nah.”

“Is this payback for something?” Sarah asks.

“Could be.”

He holds out his hand when Frankie runs over to them, cheeks red with heat, already pulling off his hoodie, which he hands over to his dad without a word before returning to the game. Lisa has stopped playing, standing aside on her own to pull her sleeve down her wrist for the hundredth time this morning. At this rate, the fabric will be stretching to her knee by lunch time. Karen has noticed as well.

“Whatever’s up, you know she’ll tell you herself,” she says. “Stop staring at her like that.”

And he nods, because she’s right, but he hates not knowing what’s eating his little girl.

Not three minutes later, Lisa gives up on the game and solemnly approaches the table, sighing as she takes a seat on the bench opposite them. He feels Karen fidget next to him the moment Sarah leaves, deciding whether she should make up an excuse to go with her.

“I need to talk to you,” Lisa says, looking down, “but I’m afraid you’ll be mad.”

“There’s no way I’m gonna be mad at you, sweetheart.” He hopes his tone of voice is reassuring enough to make her look up. It almost breaks his heart when she does, trying to force a smile at the same time.

“I’ll leave you guys alone,” Karen says.

Very seriously, Lisa crosses her small hands on the table. “I’d like you to stay.”

She may be using Karen as a buffer or emotional support, but shouldn’t her own father be able to provide both? It feels like a failure on his part, even if he does appreciate Karen’s thigh brushing his, her hand landing softly on his knee.

“I’ve been having these weird dreams lately,” his daughter says. “I didn’t think they were weird at first, but now I do.”

“Weird how, sweetheart? Like nightmares?”

“No, nothing like that. They’re… nice.” Her smile, however tiny, isn’t forced this time. “There’s this girl, she’s my age. She likes dinosaurs too and she says we should go look for bones.”

It doesn’t sound particularly nice to him but, hey, it’s her thing.

“But we never find any and I get really disappointed. Then she calls me a dork, but not like an insult,” she hurries to explain, in case her father thinks her dream-friend is being a little shit. “It feels good, the way she says it, and I’m not disappointed anymore. Then I tell her we’ll just have to keep looking.”

“And you go off and have an adventure?” Karen asks, wearing a little smile of her own. She probably sees his jaw tensing at his daughter’s words, and squeezes his knee to let him know before Lisa spots it too.

“Yeah, exactly like that,” Lisa nods with enthusiasm, for about a second, then pulls on her sleeve again. “But it was different last night.”

“What changed?” As if he needs to ask. He knows where this is going. Maria mustn’t know yet, or else she would have prepared him for it.

“She didn’t have time to keep looking. Her parents were calling her inside and I could hear mom calling me, so I couldn’t stay either. She told me to remember her name, next time we meet, and I started crying because I didn’t even know her name.” Either with the memory of the dream or the sadness she still feels outside of it, her voice is beginning to crack, and Frank’s heart just shatters. “She… she wrote it on my wrist. So that I’d never forget. And I wrote mine on hers.”

Frank lays his hand on the table, palm up, keeping his fingers as relaxed as he can. “Can I see your wrist, sweetheart?”

Yesterday, she wouldn’t have had to think before putting her hand in his. The few seconds it takes for her to do it now feel like the longest goddamn seconds of his life. She trusts him though, he knows she does. And he has to be worthy of that trust, not flinch, not swear, not even under his breath, as he pushes her sleeve back and sees the graceful cursive wrapped three times around her wrist, like a bracelet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the kudos and kind words! Hope you enjoy this chapter!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been looking at this chapter for too long. Words have now lost their meaning.  
A huge hug to [superrpowerlesshuman](https://superrpowerlesshuman.tumblr.com/), who put up with and helped me until this thing was finished.  
Excuse the melodrama and do enjoy!

It had to happen today of all days, didn’t it?

Only two parts of Frank are still moving—his bottom lip that twitches, though imperceptibly, keeping the swearing to himself, and his thumb, traveling over Lisa’s mark again and again like he could wipe it clean off her skin. The rest of him is still, absolutely motionless. Even his chest. He’s going to suffocate in his drama if she lets him.

“It’s a very pretty name,” Karen says, hoping to draw Lisa’s attention away from her father until he’s in a condition to speak.

In turn, Lisa lets out a slight giggle; as explicit an agreement as such a small sound can convey, even though she expresses some concern about them being made fun of for their names right after. Sure, because that’s the peak of human cruelty.

“No one will dare,” Karen tells her. “But if they do, I will personally punch each and every one in the throat.”

Suddenly reminded of her presence, Frank turns to her, searching for God knows what kind of support. All she can give him is a stare and a modest nod as she lays her palm flat on his thigh. The tightness in his muscles doesn’t melt away with her touch, but something comes loose and he seems to remember how to breathe.

It’s going to be a long day.

_Say something_.

The writing coils from Lisa’s wrist joint upwards, wide apart enough to make it legible. He keeps looking at it as if it’s going to change before his eyes. If he closed them, he could almost hear it hiss.

This isn’t what he wanted for his daughter.

Lily.

Just some kid, too young to have proprietary rights to anything. Especially not another person, not his child. His, but never to own, even if he helped make her, bring her up. What gives that Lily the right—

“Does it hurt?”

The stupidity of his question is made particularly obvious when she giggles more freely. He’s been poking the damn thing for a while. If he was hurting her, she would have told him. Her features are smoother now, back to their childlike softness. “You know it doesn’t.”

He must still have a stern look on his face because Karen keeps kneading his leg under the table, the motion filled with more worry than her eyes let on. It doesn’t help him calm down, but it helps with boxing up his anger, keeping it stored for later use. It’s precious little, but it’s precious all the same.

“Why’d you think I’d be mad?”

Lisa shrugs. “You don’t like…” They’ve never had a conversation at length, but she knows the gist of it. She’s barely a teen, for fuck’s sake. What is he supposed to say to her about goddamn bullshit fucking soulmates?

“That’s irrelevant, okay?” He pulls her hand to his mouth, kisses the tiny knuckles that were punching him with all of their infant strength not too long ago, using that memory to bring the tiniest of smiles to his face.

“Okay.”

Lily. Just a kid, caught in the same trap as his daughter. For all he knows, she’s crying to her mother right now, scared and confused. He can’t resent her. It’s not her fault. But he wants— needs somebody to blame.

“You got questions?”

He shouldn’t be offering answers about something he doesn’t fully understand himself, but it’s his job, isn’t it? Help her make sense of the world? He just wishes they could be talking about a simpler subject. Like climate change. He knows how to explain that.

She hesitates, peeks at the other kids still wrestling with Lieberman, and then looks back at him. “Do you know what it means?”

Don’t they both?

“It doesn’t have to mean anything, you know, if you don’t want it to. It’s up to you.”

He has always tried to teach her to be her own person, never let anyone tell her what to do. That includes him. He lets go of her hand to give his face a vigorous rub, get the blood flowing in his cheeks and feels, more than hears, Karen exhale tensely next to him.

A strained laugh jumps out of his mouth. The bright pink of Lisa’s cheeks can’t be a sign of embarrassment— she knows he’d never laugh at her, right? “You can take your time to figure it out,” he says calmly. He hopes she does. He hopes she mulls it over and over and over, until she decides she doesn’t need that shit to be happy.

“Are you still thinking about it too?”

“No, sweetheart, I… I’ve done my thinking,” he says. “I’m pretty much settled.” Karen’s hand stops its perpetual grazing. It kinda throws him off, puts him on edge. Further on edge. He reaches under the table, crushing her fingers in his. _Don’t let go now, I’m gonna lose it_. She squeezes back.

“How are you so sure you’ve made the right call?” Lisa persists, curious but not nervous, wiping some dust off the table with the heel of her hand.

That throws him off too. Kids have a way of challenging you with their questions, call you out on your bullshit when you didn’t even know you were bullshitting anyone, especially yourself. Frank opens his mouth, lets it hang for a moment as he considers his answer. He doesn’t know that he has made the right call. He only knows that it was his call to make and that’s all there is to it. Mistakes are allowed and if he’s made one, so be it. It wouldn’t be the first. But he doesn’t see a mistake when he glances over at Karen, her eyes fixed tenderly on his daughter’s face.

“There’s no right or wrong here, sweetheart,” she says, no hitch of uncertainty in her voice. “People find happiness in different ways.”

Lisa tries to gauge from his face if he agrees and even though he shouldn’t be surprised, Frank feels his eyebrows rising.

“You wanna follow my example?” 

She makes a gesture like she wants to push something away, changes her mind, crosses her arms on her chest, tries to nod but ends up tipping her head sideways, decides to take the middle ground. “Maybe.”

“Don’t.” This isn’t what he wanted for his daughter either. She has to have options. Go through trial and error, screw up, learn, do better. She can do a lot better than he ever did, that’s for sure. “Your life, your rules. What do you want?”

He doesn’t expect her to come right out with a definite reply—_ there’s no deadline, figure it out, take all the time in the world_. But the complete silence she responds with is just as unexpected.

“It’s okay if you don’t know yet.” Deep down he knows the decision’s been made for her.

“No,” Lisa says. “I do.”

Of course she does. Or thinks she does; the distinction matters very little.

“You’re mad,” she continues.

“Why do you keep saying that?”

Loud enough for Lisa to hear her, Karen pretends to whisper in his ear. “I think it may have something to do with the creases on your forehead.”

He drags his left palm across it, feels the consternation rumpling his skin and smooths it out. “Better?”

Something‘s still bothering her. Her nostrils flare with a deep breath as she nods and starts playing with her hair, touching the end of her ponytail to her cheek like a makeup brush. “Mom is really happy, you know.”

The mention of Maria makes him swallow uncomfortably. He’s tucked her away from that blissful state too long. Sometimes he wonders if a small part of her blames him for it. “Good.”

“I like seeing her like this,” his daughter says with some trepidation. “Not that things were bad when you—”

“Don’t worry about it, I get it,” he reassures her. “Seeing your loved ones happy is nice. And I’m glad your mother’s happy too. She deserves it.”

“What I want to know is…” She pauses, her mouth quirking in a familiar expression of unease. “Will you still…”

“Sweetheart, if you ask if I’ll still love you, I think I’m gonna cry,” Frank says, a grate in his voice as proof. “Nothing can make me not love you.” What pathetic excuse for a father would say otherwise? He watches her face brighten and his chest feels lighter. Only a little bit. “Nothing. Tell me you know that.”

“Yeah, dad,” she says after a while. “I know.”

If anything else needs to be said, now isn’t the time for it. He has answered the one question that matters most of all; now he has to make her laugh, eliminate what’s left of the tension between them. He waves his hand and points to a winded David, running away from the three shrieking children set on stealing the ball from him—why doesn’t he give up already?

“You could go over there and kill Lieberman, I’d still love you. Hell, I might love you even more.”

“That’s not funny,” Karen huffs, but she’s grinning wide while his daughter beams with laughter, the loose sleeve dropping to the crease of her elbow as she lifts her hand to cover her mouth.

It doesn’t bother him any less to see the mark around her wrist. What’s important is that she no longer feels the need to hide it.

“I’m dead serious,” he chuckles.

Lisa launches herself off the bench and springs towards the game, cheerful and carefree, just a kid, shooting a shifty wink at him before attempting to tackle Lieberman. She doesn’t succeed but the effort is appreciated.

“How long do we have to wait before she cracks his skull?” he asks Karen and leans into her neck with a sigh.

“She won’t crack his skull,” she scoffs.

“A guy can dream.”

She sways ever so slightly while he gathers his thoughts— they’re all over the place, not easy to wrangle, but it would be way worse if Karen wasn’t there.

“I’m proud of how you handled this,” she says and he groans in response. “Even if it ended with conspiracy to commit murder.”

She’s using his tactics, getting rid of the stress one laugh at a time. Serenity is still many, many laughs away, but if anyone can get him there, it’s Karen.

“Jesus, I can stare down the barrel of a gun without blinking, but this makes me freeze?” His spine aches, realigning itself as he shifts slightly away from her and rubs his eyes.

Karen bumps her shoulder against his. “You did good, Castle. Knowing how tough this subject is for you—”

“Not tough, just stupid.”

“We don’t need to hide behind words,” she says.

“I ain’t hiding.” The lie trails off in a murmur.

“What are you so worried about? Lisa being stuck in an unhappy relationship?”

The thought makes him sick to his stomach. She doesn’t get it. She’s one of them. He hates to be thinking of her like that, like she’s infected, especially since she did back him up on this, held his hand through it. Still holding it. “I’m worried she won’t know if she is, because she’ll be hypnotized. Didn’t you see her just now? She’s already under a spell and she hasn’t even met that Lily yet.”

“What I saw was a little girl, afraid that her dad might not love her anymore because her choices in life will be different than his.” She doesn’t mean to sound unkind and that’s the only thing keeping his heart from sinking. Because she’s spot on, he saw it too. “But you put that fear to rest.”

And who’s going to put his fears to rest? There’s no authority he can consult on the matter. “Her mind won’t be her own, Karen,” he grumbles.

“It will be entirely her own.”

“That’s a nice delusion you’ve got going there.”

“Really, Frank?” she says and he’s left biting the tip of his tongue, as her face changes from a smirk to a smile so quickly that he doesn’t know which expression to trust. “You’ve convinced yourself that the existence of someone who will love you as you are, no matter what, is the most terrible thing that could happen and I’m the deluded one?”

“That’s not how I meant it.”

“It’s exactly how you meant it.”

“Don’t get mad.”

The smirk peeks out from behind her smile, giving it an air of contempt. “I ain’t mad.”

Isn’t what she described how plain, old-fashioned love’s supposed to work, by default? No forced bonds, no complexities, no worries. “Okay, it doesn’t sound like the most terrible thing that could happen,” he says and leaves the rest of his arguments unsaid, a bone to be picked another day. “You got me there.”

This time, there’s no fluctuation from sneer to satisfaction. It’s only the latter, spreading smoothly across the curve of her mouth. Just that is worth a bit more of flexibility. “How much did it hurt to say that?” she asks.

Frank lets out a groan and a chuckle in the same breath, almost chokes on both. “Still think I’m handling it well?”

“You’re exceeding my expectations.”

Even he can tell she’s being too indulgent when she reiterates how proud she is of him, with more feeling, like she actually means it. It’s not until she drags a tense stroke over his chest with one hand, her fingers slipping from his to reach into her bag for her planner that he begins to think something’s off. But it really hits him when she opens it and shows him the date, circled with her pen what feels like ages and a moment ago.

That’s what getting too cozy earns you. The enemy jumps you from behind.

“The timing isn’t perfect,” she says, still smiling, “but I have faith in you. You can take it.”

The timing isn’t perfect? It couldn’t be worse. First he learns his little girl has been marked like cattle for slaughter and now he has to find out about Karen’s soulmate? Great, goddamn amazing. All that’s missing is a meteor on a collision course with Earth and then the day will be complete. But maybe that would be too much of a reprieve.

His quiet rage does nothing in the way of discouraging her, but it contributes a great deal in dimming her smile a fraction, then another one and another, until it’s completely gone and all that’s left is a straight line. Frank wants to rewind, put the smile back on her face, make this conversation not happen.

“I asked you and you said—”

“I know what I said.” He jumps up from the bench, trying very hard not to kick it until it’s become a pile of splinters, cramming his hands into the pockets of his jeans. Feels like punching a hole through something. “I’m gonna go get some coffee.”

“You have coffee right here.”

“It’s gone cold.”

“No, it hasn’t.”

“Tastes funny.”

“We had an agreem—”

“You want anyth—”

Her hand slamming against the table cuts him off and he gives her his most imploring look, hoping for an ounce of mercy. Not today. Not yet.

“We can do it later, after we drop off the kids at home,” she says, unyielding. “But it has to be today.” 

Time’s up, basically. He can’t waste any of it by walking away, so he sits his sorry ass back down on the bench, slipping closer to her only after she slants towards him. Frank is nothing if not a man of his word. He closes his eyes, inhales as much air as his lungs can hold and then lets it out, very slowly. “Okay.”

Karen nods once, not exactly pleased, but not displeased either, and he lifts her hand off the table to take a look at her stinging red palm.

“It doesn’t hurt,” she tells him.

He kisses it better anyway.

With the kids in the car, the atmosphere can be nothing less than cheerful, even as they yell the lyrics to their latest favorite song at the top of their lungs, playing it again and again, until Frank is certain blood is oozing out of his ears. Karen joins in and sings along with them after a while and he has to wonder if she actually knew the lyrics already or if she’s learned them during this ride. The ragged choir could almost make this train wreck of a day seem normal.

It’s different when it’s just the two of them. There’s no singing, not even small talk, and he’s suddenly too aware of the measure of her breath, the steady in-and-out of tranquility. Frank squeezes the gear shift until it squeaks in his hand and Karen’s fingers are suddenly entwined with his. She doesn’t say anything. As they wait for the last red light before his building, she gives him a lingering, inquisitive look and he stares back. He hasn’t come up with any aces up his sleeves. None of his arguments will hold up. _I love you_, he thinks, _shouldn’t that mean something_, and then the light turns green. Several car horns start hooting behind them and he drives off without a word.

Inside his apartment, the first thing he does is grab a beer from the fridge and toss back a few gulps to wet his throat so that when he speaks, whatever he has to say doesn’t come out too dry. He tries his voice by offering her one as well. The day isn’t even that hot, but the bottle begins sweating in his hand. She declines and sits at the tiny dining table, places her bag on it and begins rummaging through.

Frank pulls up a chair and plops down in it, cursing under his breath until Karen finds what she’s looking for: a small leather-bound journal in a faded chestnut brown color. It doesn’t look dangerous, but his eyes follow it as if it were a grenade waiting for someone to pull the pin.

It’s going to be some fancy guy, a doctor or something, somebody who has healed more wounds than he’s inflicted. An obvious kind of handsome, without scars. Blue eyes, soft hands, a big heart, to match hers. She doesn’t deserve anything less.

“I went through a cleaning phase a few years ago,” Karen says. “You wouldn’t believe how many things I got rid of. Journals were the first to go, but I kept this one. I don’t know why. Maybe something told me I’d be using it as evidence.” She thumbs over the cover’s worn edges before passing it to him. “It’s from 1998. I figured something more recent wouldn’t be as convincing.”

He puts down his beer and holds the journal up in the air as though he’s unsure how it works. “What am I supposed to do with it?”

Karen rolls her eyes. “Open it. Have a look.”

It’s just a bundle of paper. The worst it could give him is a papercut, but it feels very heavy in his hand as he flips it open and turns a few pages at random, taking in rants of a teenage Karen who had no other outlet for her frustration. The word ‘mom’ pops up enough times for him to know he shouldn’t read them, so out of respect he only skims over them. There are a couple of notes scribbled in the margins, indecipherable without context, and squiggly lines blurring words she’d rather not have written down. More or less what’s expected to dwell in a teenager’s journal. One thing stands out from the jumble of notes though—black skulls, at least three on each page, identical to his tattoo.

He sets his hand next to the open journal, palm facing upwards to expose his wrist, and examines the details, struggling to find any difference between the two designs.

Bullshit.

“Did Lieberman put you up to this?”

Even for David, it would be too elaborate a prank, too mean-spirited, but if it is indeed a prank, they must have spent considerable time setting it up. Frank can appreciate their dedication. Okay, they got him. They got him good. He’s willing to see the humor in it and put the whole thing behind him without much fuss. Karen laughs the way one would laugh at a dog chasing its own tail.

“No, Frank,” she says. “No third parties are involved, just you and me.”

Soulmates are bullshit.

But it makes sense. Given the choice, an actual choice, would he have gone after his lawyer? His goddamn divorce lawyer… Who does that? And why would Karen have chosen him? If fate wasn’t twisting her arm, she wouldn’t have looked at him twice, inside or outside of the office.

There’s a kind of bliss he hadn’t considered until now, the bliss of the unaware. Did he prefer thinking somebody would come and steal her from him? Yes. No. Maybe. He no longer trusts his own mind to provide an answer.

“I didn’t need to see this.”

“Would you believe me otherwise?”

Without proof? Hell no. “I don’t know.”

“Don’t hold back on me now.”

“Are you asking if I trust you? Because—”

“I guess I am.”

“—that’s not fair. Not after you’ve been sitting on this for—”

“Don’t you dare turn that on me.” Her anger is tempered, for the moment, but if he pushes her too much, she is going to give him hell. And he sort of craves it. If she lashes out, then he can do the same. “I tried to tell you and you wouldn’t listen. What did you want me to do, beg?”

She’s right. She’s right and he doesn’t know what to snap back with.

“Take this thing away from me.” He sets the journal carefully on the table, pushes it towards her and averts his eyes from it. From her too. Can’t look at her the same way, she isn’t his Karen anymore. She’s _his_ Karen, his property, and he is hers. “Shit,” he mutters, hiding his face behind his hands.

“You’ve been looking at me like I might vanish without notice for so long.” He can hear her irritation melt into sadness, similar to the dismal sound she made on the phone the night that bullet with Rand’s name on it found his arm instead. “I thought you’d be happy to know that I’m—”

“If you thought this would make me happy, then you don’t know me at all. I never wanted this.”

“You wanted me,” she shoots back.

There’s no denying that. But he can try, see if it works. “You weren’t supposed to be part of that crap, you were different, you…” Frank looks up at her, the piercing blue of her eyes tearing into him. She’s perfect, in every goddamn way, impossible to resist because he wasn’t meant to resist her.

“I was special? I’m not special, Frank. And neither are you.” If she means to sound harsh, she’s failing outright, with her voice cracking like glass as she reaches out to touch him. “We’re so ordinary it’s not even funny.”

“Stop, goddammit. Stop.”

He pushes back his chair and shuffles away from her. He can’t have her touching him. His brain is already on the verge of exploding and she’s going to send him over the limit. Folding her arms to her chest, Karen leans back in her chair, gives him space. Always giving and giving, until the time comes when she’s spent. Would she be so patient with him if he didn’t have the tattoo on his wrist? He feels like clawing it off, scraping it raw.

“You saw this,” he says, raising his wrist to her line of vision. “When I came in for the consultation. That’s why you pulled Nelson out of the room so fast.”

“I pulled Foggy out because, like you, he didn’t understand that finding out who my soulmate was didn’t matter more than doing my job.”

“Bullshit it didn’t matter. One look at it and you were done.”

“Here we go again,” she sighs, but doesn’t refute him. “Nobody loses their mind when they meet their soulmate.”

“Seems pretty crazy to me.”

“Why?”

“Come on, Karen. Is a divorced dad considered a catch these days or was your bar set so goddamn low from the start?”

“Frank…”

“No, you set it low for me. Because you were forced to.”

“I wasn’t forced to do anything.”

“Keep telling yourself that, maybe someday—”

“How can I prove to you that I’m—”

“—it’ll come true.”

“—in full possession of my faculties?”

He still sees himself as separate, the last traces of resistance before he’s completely engulfed in the collective frenzy perhaps. “Nobody in their right mind would—”

“God, you’re impossible…”

“—choose this willingly.”

“I’m not blind to the pros and cons, but I weighed—”

“Karen.”

“—them and made my decision and—”

“Karen, listen to me.”

“—now you want me to defend myself, like I committed a cr—”

“I wear a bulletproof vest to work, Karen.” That gives her pause. She blinks at him, looking a little lost. The likelihood of pain, this kind, this magnitude of pain, isn’t something she takes lightly. He has seen it in her face one too many times; the switch from worry to relief, the speck of doubt evaporating as soon as he opened his arms to her, as if a hug was the only thing needed to validate her distress. “You’re gonna sit there and pretend that it doesn’t drive you up the wall, hm? Wondering when you’ll get the call that I’m dead?”

Not even the vulnerable look on her face can cut through his need to push her as far away as possible. She composes herself quickly, straightening her back and looking him dead in the eyes. Despite her best efforts, her bottom lip still trembles. “Maria would get the call. I doubt Curtis would think to call me immediately, so I’d probably find out from the news.”

It’s true, no police department would contact her first. She may be his soulmate, but besides an old journal, she has nothing to show for it. It catches him off guard, how calmly she mentions the fact. “But you’d know, right? Because you’d turn into a an empty shell—”

“I’m not sure it works like that,” Karen fumbles, shaking her head. “Without data to support—”

“—like Murdock, the poor bastard.”

“Don’t refer to him like that.”

“Why? You think that miserable sack of bones cares? He doesn’t give a shit. He’s no better than a corpse, walking around with no purpose, no will to live. Love doesn’t do that. What more proof do you need? Love doesn’t do that!” He realizes he’s shouting when she jumps at his words. “That’s what soul bonds do to people. Hollow them out until they’re not even human anymore. Is that what you want? What you’d choose for yourself if you really had a choice?”

Her assurance that she ‘likes him as he is’ takes on a new meaning now. _It’s counterintuitive but—without wanting it—against all logic— I have to like you_. She’s smart. She’s smart, she’ll see reason.

Karen begins patting the journal in front of her tenderly. “Like I said, I made my decision.”

She’s certifiably insane. And he isn’t, not yet at least, so the responsibility to makes things right falls to him.

Frank takes a deep breath and sits down again. “I didn’t.” He wants to take her fidgety hand in his, press it to his mouth and say how sorry he is, how none of this matters. Instead, he crosses his hands on the table, crushing his knuckles together. “I had no say in anything. You just backed me into a corner.”

She mimics his movement, concentrating hard on holding herself together. “I wanted to tell you, I really did. Lying’s exhausting. But…”

“I didn’t leave you much choice, huh?” he smirks. “You did what you had to do, I know.” It’s not her fault that they found themselves caught in the same trap. Now it’s only a matter of whether she’s sensible enough to chew her leg out of it. Frank is no stranger to tasting his own blood in his mouth.

“We can figure it out together,” she responds with a shy smile. It sounds nice. Most fibs do. “You tell me how you want to go on from here and—”

Frank snorts a derisive laugh at the suggestion and her face immediately falls. “Oh, so what I want matters all of a sudden?”

“Of course it does.”

“How kind of you, ma’am.”

Her hand slides over to his, stops short of touching him. “Do you need time, Frank?” she asks. “To process everything and then, maybe—”

“Time won’t change anything,” he says. “I told you, didn’t I? This soulmate crap isn’t for me, even when it’s… When it’s you on the other end.”

The feeling of disbelief is mutual. Frank wasn’t sure he’d be able to say it until he did. Following through is an entirely different story. He can feel his heart struggling, a heavy thump slowing down, and hopes to God she’s about to give up because he doesn’t know how long he can carry on like this.

The tips of her fingers steer clear from his hands as she drags them back across the cheap melamine, drumming a listless beat where they come to rest. Her eyes drop and she licks her lips. “Is that how little I mean to you?”

Fuck. _Fuck._ “That’s not the point.”

“What is the point, Frank? That you can’t stand—

“Jesus Christ…”

“—having your precious beliefs challenged because they’ll crumble under scrutiny?”

“Have it your way.” Frank draws his whole body into a shrug, wrings his hands tighter. His knuckles could pierce the skin covering them by this point. “I’m a pigheaded asshole, yeah?”

“Yup.”

“Then what are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be running in the opposite direction, get as far away from me as you can?”

“I don’t want to,” she shrugs back, in a less exaggerated way. Even if it’s doing him in, he admires her composure. “What about you, Frank? Do you really want me to run away?”

No. He wants the sun to keep on shining. He wants to hold her in his arms and just… breathe her in—but his desires aren’t his, his thoughts are planted. So he has to go by the one thing he explicitly remembers not wanting. The answer comes out of his throat as painlessly as a scalpel wrapped in razor wire would.

“I don’t want no goddamn soulmate.”

“So that’s what I get?” Karen asks, still hard as nails, even though her eyes are watering. “After all this time? Not even a cold apology. You’re just throwing us away?”

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles weakly and hopes it covers everything. Everything. The time she wasted on him, the unspoken promises he’s breaking, the way he’s treating her, how much he’s hurting her; all that and then some.

“Fine.” Karen nods a bit too wildly as she puts, or rather shoves the journal back in her bag, to keep him from noticing her shaking hands. He does notice though. “If you want to be lonely and miserable, don’t let me stop you.”

“I’ll be okay.”

Playing it cool is the furthest thing from his mind. All he’s trying to do is put hers at ease. She worries too much about him as it is. But that’s not how Karen perceives it. She shoots him a glance full of reproach that only lasts a second. When their eyes meet, her face softens in exactly the way he hoped it wouldn’t, all gentleness and warmth and concern.

“Will you, Frank?”

Frank keeps his mouth shut. Whatever’s collapsing in his chest is bound to make a lot of noise if it finds a way out. It must be the soulmate bond, cracking under pressure. It must be. He watches her sling her bag over her shoulder, stand up, walk to the door, pause for a single excruciating moment, then open it and walk out of there. She doesn’t even slam the door behind her.

The sound of her heels fades down the corridor. It isn’t earth-shattering. Frank expected more… clamor, but it’s quiet and tame. Silence spreads all over his apartment like a thick mist. He drags himself to the window to verify the day is bleeding into dusk, as it tends to do. Sun still pinned in the sky. The world retains its colors.

Everything’s as it should be.

And Frank can’t seem to breathe right.


End file.
